


Don't Wake Me Up Just Yet (Old)

by Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)



Series: Project Eclipse [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Arguing, Battle, Best Friends, Character Death, Christmas Eve, Confessions, Creepy, Dark Magic, Demon Summoning, Demonic Possession, Demons, Depressing, Depression, Doctor/Patient, Doppelganger, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, First Dates, First Meetings, Foreshadowing, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Hanukkah, High School, Hospitals, Hugs, I Made Myself Cry, Illnesses, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Living Together, Loss of Parent(s), Love at First Sight, Made For Each Other, Male Friendship, Men Crying, Murder Mystery, Nightmares, Original Character Death(s), Panic Attacks, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Psychological Horror, Rage, Resurrection, Running Away, Sad Ending, Stalking, Supernatural Elements, Terminal Illnesses, To Be Edited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-10-30 08:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 62,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry
Summary: ***TO BE EDITED AND REPLACED IN A NEW POST***Dr. Darcy Adair thought he was content with his life. After all, he was living with his beloved father and following in his footsteps, just like he'd always wanted. But then, by chance, he reluctantly takes an insomniac patient by the name of Ansel Hunnisett. Despite Ansel's hatred of doctors and Darcy's nervousness to take a patient with such a distaste for people in his profession, the two immediately click. Next thing the doctor knows, he's sharing an apartment with the man.On Thanksgiving, two months after moving in with Ansel, Darcy goes to visit his father. Little does he realize that this will be the last time he'll see the man alive, as the following day, he receives news of his father's suicide. Devastated, Darcy refuses to believe that his father's demise is anything but a murder, and he begins to wonder if he isn't crazy to believe so when he learns about the lengths to which Ansel's former best friend might go to in order to get him back…A story of unconditional, platonic love between two best friends who meet by fluke, and the lengths to which they will go to keep each other around, including summoning a demon in a risky resurrection ritual.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-post of a story that I had uploaded here when it was first written, but deleted because I had made it for sale as an eBook. I only got a few sales though, so now I've decided to make it free again and re-post it back to the sites where I do get views. If you'd like to support me by downloading the eBook, you can get it for free at [Smashwords](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/698297), or you can support me by purchasing it for $0.99 at [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9N0M59).  
>  _Written for my dearest parents and my loving boyfriend. Thank you for convincing me to continue writing even when I doubted myself._

            Darcy Adair had been the bearer of bad news for his patients several times. As a doctor, that was kind of his shtick. However, when he got the news for the results of one of his more recent patients, he felt his heart sink worse than it ever had before. After reading the words typed onto the paper, he slumped back into his chair, just staring at the words in disbelief. The tall man then sat up in his chair and hunched forward with his elbows against his desk, paper in his face. He cupped his mouth with his free hand when his vision began to blur with tears, and suddenly he was crying.

            “Suck it up, man!” The doctor thought to himself. He tried to contain his feelings, but it was no use; he was too emotional and sentimental a man to stop himself from crying. The diagnosis he had made initially hadn’t been fatal, or even of any real concern, but the paper before him said the patient only had maybe a little over a month now to live. Honestly, he knew that he had never before hoped so strongly that the results he’d been given were wrong.

* * *

 

            Darcy walked to his office, where a wife was waiting with her husband. When he opened the door, the two of them looked up at him anxiously. The husband had been admitted with chills, chest pain, and shortness of breath. He also had a pretty wicked fever, and even then, he would cough every so often. Darcy’s eyebrows furrowed, but he tried to give them a reassuring smile. He sat down in a chair in front of the couple and pushed his long, messy dark brown hair out of his eyes.

            “So, what’s the diagnosis?” The wife asked worriedly.

            “Well,” Darcy opened his folder and skimmed it once more, half to make sure what he was about to announce was correct, and half to make the situation a little bit less awkward for himself, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

            “What’s the good news?” The wife was then cut off by her husband.

            “Tell me the _bad_ news, first,” insisted the man.

            “Sure.” After a pause, Darcy cleared his throat. He knelt forward. “I’m afraid that you’re suffering from an abscess in the lung.”

            “What does that mean?” The wife spoke again. Not surprisingly, she was the more talkative of the two, since her husband was having a bit of trouble breathing and all.

            “It’s a bacterial infection. It causes the tissue around the infected area to die, and the resulting pocket is filled with pus.” The doctor explained.

            The husband and wife leaned against each other for support, fearing this may be the end.

            “Uh, but, I mean…” Darcy brought attention back to himself. “There _is_ good news.”

            “What’s that?” The husband.

            “It’s treatable.”

            The husband looked up at Darcy with wide eyes and mouth slightly agape. “So I’m not going to die?”

            “Not if you follow my instructions and take the antibiotics I prescribe.” Darcy replied with a small smile. “Now, you told me that you drink, right?”

            “Well, of course.”

            “I mean alcohol.”

            “Oh. Yeah.”

            “How much do you think you drink in a week?”

            The husband lowered his head for a moment in thought before looking back up. He coughed before speaking. “I don’t know, maybe three or four a day… Sometimes six or seven?”

            Darcy widened his eyes. “ _Bottles?_ ”

            “No, no, just cans.”

            “Still, that’s… a lot of beer.”

            He stammered, “Well, I mean, there are variations, of course. Depends on the occasion.”

            “Okay, well, hear me out. I can’t tell you how to live your life, but I think that your lung abscess may have been caused by the alcohol you consume. I recommend that you try to drink less, alright?” Darcy suggested.

            “Alright, doc.”

            Darcy looked down at the folder on his lap and pulled up his pen. Then, he wrote up a slip of paper, ripped it from its pad, and handed it to the man. “Ask your pharmacist for these antibiotics. If you take them as the label instructs you to, then your abscess should hopefully be healed within five or six months. Until then, take it easy, and I don’t just mean on the drinking.” He told the couple as they stood. Looking up at them, he raised his eyebrows and added, “Capisce?”

            “I understand.” The husband affirmed.

            “I’ll make sure he doesn’t drink as much,” assured the wife.

            “Well, that about does it, then!” Darcy jumped to his feet, and, with a small skip in his step, walked over and opened the door to his office, holding it open to let the patient and his spouse out. “If you have any concerns, questions, or if your condition worsens at all, give me a call and I’ll sort everything out for you.”

            He was about to close the door when a nurse ran up. “Dr. Adair?” The nurse, a new guy named Ryan, asked.

            Darcy was a happy guy. He very rarely disliked anyone, let alone hate them. Ryan, however, was one of the few people that rubbed Darcy the wrong way. Needless to say, their relationship, as colleagues and as people, was rather tense.

            “What is it, Ryan?” Darcy responded, trying very hard to keep his tone as pleasant as it normally was, but finding it exceptionally difficult.

            “Could you take the patient in Room C3? All of the other doctors are busy.”

            “Have you tried Dr. Park? She’s always free.”

            Ryan clicked his tongue, pretending to be apologetic as he confided, “She’s taking the patient in Room D5 right now.”

            With a heavy sigh, Darcy finally gave in. “Fine, I’ll take them.”

            “Good to hear.” After nodding his head, Ryan turned to walk off, but then he stopped and turned back to Darcy. “Oh, and one more thing, Doctor. He _hates_ doctors.”

            Darcy watched with a steady, though not entirely present, stare as Ryan wandered off down the hall. Then, he calmly closed his office door. Once it was closed, he brought his hands up over his head, burying his face in his upper arms and having a silent nervous breakdown. Ryan knew that Darcy wasn’t as tough under pressure as the other doctors. In fact, Darcy almost never worked with patients that hated doctors. He felt too uncomfortable in a situation like that. The patients always insulted him and made him feel like his career choice was a mistake, and besides, they rarely seemed to listen to a single thing he said. Really, it was more or less a waste of time trying to talk to patients like that. They always insisted that they knew better than him.

            Still inwardly panicking, Darcy went to the wooden shelves on his dark green walls and looked at a framed picture he had of his father. His father had been a doctor, which was why he had taken up the profession himself. He hadn’t been forced into it, though: it had been his choice to pursue a career in medicine. He was just so proud of his father. He’d wanted to be just like him since he was young. So, standing there in his office, he thought. Would his father back away from a patient just because that patient might not listen to a word he said?

            “No, he wouldn’t.” He mumbled the answer to himself. “He’d take the patient anyway, because trying again is better than giving up.” His father’s words of wisdom gave him the strength to take the patient. He put the photo down, then placed his pen into the pocket of his coat. Off he went, striding with his long legs toward Patient Room C3.

            Darcy was a tall man, and very friendly. It wasn’t difficult at all to make him laugh, but some people were intimidated by his height. Luckily, while he was rather tall, he was also a very scrawny man. As he was walking down the halls, he waved at some of the patients sitting, smiling at them, as was his nature. When he finally arrived at Patient Room C3, he hesitated before opening the door. Already, he could hear a little bit of a commotion inside. A different nurse rushed over to him, handing him a clipboard. He was told that they forgot to put it in the room for him, and Darcy nodded them away before taking a look at the paper in the clipboard. The patient’s name was the first thing that caught his eye.

            “Ansel Hunnisett?” He mumbled the name to himself. “What a weird name. Sounds sort of snooty.” He skimmed his eyes over the rest of the preliminary report. Ansel had come in with concern to his sleeping, of which he had apparently done very little over the past month. He also claimed to be anxious. Darcy finally opened the door, deciding it was better to hear from Ansel himself instead of reading the clip notes version.

            “Get your hands off of me! I’m not here for any sort of bullshit checkup like that!”

            Darcy stood in the doorway, staring at Ansel, who was fighting off two nurses that were struggling to get him to remain seated on the exam table. Ansel was equally as tall as Darcy, it seemed, but he was a bit stockier—he must have had at least seventy pounds on him. He was wearing a purple zip-up hoodie over a light yellow t-shirt, and his light brown hair was long and uncombed with his bangs hanging loosely at the sides of his face. When he saw the doctor, he stopped struggling against the nurses after shoving them both one last time for good measure.

            “You must be the doctor, then?”

            Darcy motioned for the nurses to leave, which they did haughtily. They closed the door behind themselves, leaving Darcy alone in the room with Ansel. The doctor struggled to keep an air of confidence around himself. “Yes. I’m Dr. Adair, but you can just call me—”

            Ansel held his hand up, rolling his eyes. “Don’t care. Just give me a prescription and let me leave. I don’t even want to be here.”

            Darcy stood in place. He wasn’t sure how to react to being shut down. He had a certain rhythm to his patient interviews that Ansel was violently disrupting. “Prescriptions for what?”

            “I dunno, man! Sleeping pills and anti-anxiety shit, I guess.”

            “You seem stressed.” Darcy observed.

            Ansel brought his hand to his forehead, pushing his bangs back a bit as he huffed. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” There was a moment of silence before Ansel spoke again. “My name’s Ansel. I haven’t slept in a month, I’m anxious and stressed, and I’ve been having a rough time with my friend. That’s all. So just give me some prescriptions and let me walk.”

            Darcy pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Ansel. The other man saw this and rolled his eyes, but Darcy didn’t back down. “Rough times with a friend?”

            “Look, don’t play psychologist with me, doctor. It’s none of your business.”

            “I know the feeling.” While saying this, Darcy lowered his head. When he knew that Ansel was probably looking at him, he continued with his pity story. “When I was younger, I had a good friend. We had been friends for years. But then, he became one of those party people. I just wasn’t into that kind of scene. Man, we fought so often after that. It just broke my heart. We had been so close, but we let it all be destroyed simply because I didn’t want to go to any parties.” He let a beat pass before he raised his head and took in the sight of Ansel.

            “Wow…” Ansel replied. “You’re so lame.”

            The casual and playful nature of the insult made Darcy start laughing. His contagious giggle spread to Ansel, and soon the ice had been broken by the long laugh they shared.

            “I really am.” Darcy agreed through his chuckles as he stood up and began to slowly pace. “I’m a pretty lame guy.”

            “I can see that, given that you’re a doctor.”

            “Being a doctor isn’t lame, Mr. Hunnisett.”

            “Please, just call me Ansel.” As he said this, the man rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. The slightly-off-gray pants he was wearing had black stains on the legs, and Darcy noted that.

            “Have you been working, Ansel?”

            “I needed something to pass the time. Insomnia, and all. You know how it is. I’ve been painting for someone.”

            “Those pants are wrecked.” Darcy pointed out.

            Ansel shook his head. “I like the stains. They add character.”

            “Funny choice of words…” Darcy was amused by Ansel. While he did seem to despise doctors, he seemed to be a funny guy. “So, about your friend…”

            Again, however, Ansel shook his head. “There’s just been a lot of stress in our relationship. You could say he’s getting a little too close for comfort.”

            Darcy decided to give his diagnosis right then. “Well, Ansel, I’m not going to prescribe you anything.”

            The man looked up at him. “What? Why not?”

            “I believe that your symptoms are merely due to stress. A lot of people feel anxious and have trouble sleeping when they’re stressed out.”

            “But…”

            “Come back after you’ve sorted out the problem with your friend. If there’s nothing to stress you, but you _still_ can’t sleep, _then_ I’ll prescribe you something.”

            “You really think it’s just stress?” The tone Ansel used suggested that such a diagnosis was incredibly relieving to him.

            “Probably. I mean, did anyone in your family—”

            “Nope.” He answered before the question was even finished, but Darcy let it slide, taking it as excitement at not having anything seriously wrong with him.

            “Well, then that’s that.” The scrawny doctor walked to the door, opening it for Ansel. “If you have any concerns, questions, or if your condition worsens at all, give me a call and I’ll sort everything out for you.”

            However, Ansel didn’t leave. He just sat there. Darcy waited for one beat, then two, but the stockier man still didn’t move; he only smiled at him.

            “Is something else bothering you?” Darcy finally asked.

            “No, it’s just…” Ansel pointed at him, smirking. “It’s strange. _You’re_ strange.”

            Darcy raised a brow. “I’m strange?”

            “I don’t mean it like that.” Ansel lowered his hand. “I mean, you actually seem like a normal, cheerful guy.”

            “Yeah, so?”

            “You’re not an asshole like other doctors. Are you new to the job?”

            Darcy shrugged. “Going on three years this August.”

            “When do you get off?”

            Darcy’s mind was in the gutter, and he felt his face flush a bit. “Excuse me?”

            “When do you stop working?”

            “ _Oh._ Well, I don’t think you need to know that.”

            It was Ansel’s turn to shrug, and he got up from the exam table. He was almost the exact same height as Darcy, but he almost seemed to be about half an inch shorter. “Can’t say I didn’t try.” He headed for the door, and had just stepped out when he poked his head back in. His brown eyes met Darcy’s of a lighter shade of the same color, and then he inquired, “What did you say your name was?”

            “Dr. Adair.”

            “No, the one I cut off.”

            “I didn’t.”

            There was a pause, and after it, Darcy sighed.

            “ _Darcy_ Adair.”

            “What a weird name.” Ansel told him. “Well, see you ‘round, Darcy.” With that, he started walking down the hall. He pulled up his hood over his head and shoved his hands into his sweater’s pockets before disappearing into the crowd of doctors in the hall. Darcy leaned against the door as he watched the other man go, with his arms crossed over his chest.

            It was odd. He hadn’t been able to connect with a patient so quickly since he first started. There was something about Ansel that intrigued him, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d say that perhaps it was fate that they’d met one another. Briefly, he thought about thanking Ryan, but then changed his mind when he realized that he’d sooner have sex with a dog than he would thank Ryan. He was still lost in his thoughts, trying to figure out what it was about Ansel that made him feel so welcomed despite his profession, when a nurse with another patient snapped her fingers in front of his face.

            “Earth to Dr. Adair.”

            “Huh? Oh, yes, sorry. I’ll take another patient while I’m here.”


	2. Chapter 2

            “And that’s how we met.” Ansel concluded, finally ending his lively ramble that was directed at the cashier of the grocery store they were at.

            “I didn’t ask,” replied the cashier, who then gave him a vaguely frustrated and tight-lipped smile before turning to Darcy. “Debit?”

            “Yeah.” A bit flustered, Darcy briefly held up his card. The cashier pressed a few buttons on her screen, and then the card machine lit up, telling him to insert his card.

            “Then,” Ansel picked up right where he left off, as if just to spite the cashier, “we moved in together. See, I was lookin’ for a new place to stay, and this loser was still living in his dad’s basement.”

            “Ansel.” Darcy warned quietly as he pulled the card out of the machine. He realized he hadn’t put it in chip-first, so he rolled his eyes at himself and corrected it. He selected his chequing account, then typed in his pin when he was prompted. The payment went through, and the cashier handed him his receipt as Ansel grabbed two of the three bags of groceries. “Thanks.” He mumbled awkwardly, putting his card back into his wallet, and his wallet back into his pocket, before grabbing the remaining grocery bag and heading after Ansel.

            When they got outside, Darcy asked, “Why do you have to tell our story to everyone we meet?”

            “What? It’s not like they care.” Ansel retorted playfully.

            “That’s exactly my point.”

            “Look, I’m just excited that we moved in together.”

            “That was two months ago!”

            “And I’m still in my honeymoon phase, what about you?”

            Darcy shook his head. “Man, you’re a freak.”

            “Well, you’re still a loser, so who wins?”

            As they shared a laugh, Darcy adjusted his scarf with his free hand, pulling it back up to his nose. It had grown cold early that year, but little snow stuck to the ground. It wasn’t uncomfortably cold outside, just chilly enough for Darcy to want a scarf. Ansel wore a thin black coat over his hoodie, which he made a point of wearing every day, it seemed.

            They had moved in together in an apartment about a block away from the grocery store. It wasn’t a very good area, but there was a parking garage behind it that offered free parking for residents, and it was in their combined price range (which was mostly Darcy’s, since Ansel only worked the occasional odd job), so who was Darcy to complain? Ansel just seemed happy to have a roof over his head, but still wouldn’t say much about his old friend.

            Just then, Ansel’s cellphone dinged in his sweater’s pocket. Darcy glanced at him, but Ansel didn’t even glance down.

            “Sounds like you just got a text.” Darcy observed.

            “Yep.” Ansel confirmed.

            “Shouldn’t you check it?”

            “My hands are kinda full right now, buddy.”

            Darcy looked ahead as they kept walking. “It’s just, you _never_ check who’s been texting you when I’m around.”

            “Because I know it’s not you texting me.”

            “So? What does that even mean?”

            “It means that it’s _him_.” Ansel answered. Darcy knew he was again referring to his former friend, the one he crashed with prior to moving to their apartment.

            “Are you ever going to tell me about him?” The doctor questioned. “I mean, it’s been two months, and he’s _still_ texting you at least once every hour? And you’re not even sleeping any better.”

            Ansel huffed. “Darc, I don’t know what you want me to say. He’s a psycho. I really just want to put him in my past.”

            “Then block his number, for crying out loud.”

            “ _He’s a psycho_.” Ansel stressed. “I’d rather he be texting me every hour than have him hunt me down and fillet me, or whatever the hell he wants.”

            Darcy stayed silent for a moment, as if he felt somewhat shamed. Then, he mumbled, “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I have no right to butt in and tell you what to do.” He got no response, so he looked at Ansel, who seemed to be struggling a bit with the two bags. He had taken the heaviest in his left hand, which was his non-dominant one. “Here, let me carry that one for you.”

            “I got it,” insisted Ansel, “I got it.”

            When they got to their apartment building, they took the elevator up to the fourth floor. Darcy, who had a mild fear of elevators, usually preferred to take the stairs, but he made an exception when he and Ansel were carrying things such as grocery bags. Ansel did not necessarily share Darcy’s phobia, but he understood why the doctor would have such a fear; being a doctor, he must have seen the results of some tragic accidents at least _once_ in his career.

            Once out of the elevator, the duo headed to their apartment, number 407. Since he had a hand free, Darcy unlocked the door and stepped in first. They set the bags down in the kitchen, then looked at each other.

            “Man, I don’t know what I’m gonna do without you tonight.” Ansel remarked.

            “You know, you don’t have to stay here alone.” Darcy reminded him. “You’re more than welcome to come. It’ll just be my dad and I otherwise.”

            Ansel scoffed lightly and nodded. “Yeah, I know that, but I also know how much you miss your dad. You’ve been talking about this visit for weeks.” He began to unpack the contents of the bags onto the counters, then added, “I wouldn’t dare take time away from you and your old man by being a third wheel.”

            Darcy started helping Ansel, but when the slightly-shorter man gently denied the assistance, he opted to sigh and lean against the counter instead. “I should go now, but I just don’t feel like it’s right to leave anyone alone on Thanksgiving.” He said.

            “I’ll be fine.” Ansel smiled at his messy-haired friend. “Just go and enjoy yourself, Peanut.”

            Darcy grinned and rolled his eyes. The nickname “Peanut” was a term of endearment that Ansel had started using on him after seeing him eating a can of salted peanuts. It went without saying that Darcy really liked eating peanuts of any sort. Ansel called it an obsession, and in all honesty, the doctor wasn’t entirely sure if he could argue. “Alright,” he finally gave in, “I’ll be back in a few hours. Take care of yourself while I’m gone.” He headed for the door, opening it.

            “Be careful driving. Roads might be slippery.”

            “I will. See you.”

            “I’ll be here.”

            With that, Darcy left, locking the door behind him. Ansel looked at the groceries and exhaled. He glanced almost unconsciously toward the answering machine and found that there were three messages on voicemail, so he walked over and pressed play.

            “You have three unread messages,” reported the electronic voice.

            “Yeah, no shit.” Ansel mumbled.

            “Message one: left Thursday, November 24th, 2016 at 5:02 PM.”

            Ansel glanced at the digital clock that sat on top of their cheap television set. It was 6:30 in the evening, and they had left at 5:00, two minutes before the message was left. “Damn, were we really out that long…?”

            “Darcy, it’s dad.” A male voice began. Ansel paid attention, not so much to what was being said, but to the voice itself. He had never heard Darcy’s father before, and he was curious. “Just checking in to make sure you’re coming over tonight. Call me if you get this, please.” There was a pause. “Err, actually, don’t. Call me if you’re _not_ coming. We need to talk. Alright.”

            “End of message.”

            Ansel thought for a moment. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that Darcy’s father sounded nervous about something. Frightened, even. Though he worried a bit about what the man was talking about, and if Darcy would be alright, he decided to let the messages continue as he headed back into the kitchen to sort out the groceries he’d unpacked.

            The next message was from someone Ansel himself had done an odd job for, at 6:11 PM. They were calling to ask if he’d be interested in doing another odd job for them after the weekend, and to call them if he was. They left their number just in case he’d forgotten, which he hadn’t since he already had it written down.

            Ansel was reaching up to put something into the cupboard when the third message began. It had been left just ten minutes before he and Darcy got home.

            “Hey, Ansel. It’s Jay.”

            The voice he heard on the machine made Ansel drop the box he was holding. It hit the counter with a loud thud, but Ansel just stared ahead, petrified.

            “Yeah, I know, you’re probably surprised to hear from me, but I had no other choice, man. You stopped replying to my texts. I’m worried about you. I got your phone number from someone you worked with. Who’s this Darcy guy?”

            Ansel was hardly thinking as he strode toward the answering machine. He was about to press the delete button when his former friend continued.

            “Have you been sleeping? I doubt it. Look, just talk to me, man. Text me back. Call me. Answer the phone when I call again, and I _will_ call again. If you don’t, I… I don’t know what I’ll do, but it won’t be pretty. I need to see you. I need to—”

            Ansel pressed his finger down on the red button it had been hovering over.

            “Message deleted. You have zero unread messages.”

            For a long moment, Ansel just stood there, staring at the glowing “0” on the answering machine. He really couldn’t run from his past forever, could he? His phone dinged again. Blindly, he pulled the device from his pocket, unlocking it and looking at the text. It was from Jay, of course.

            “Did you get my message?” It asked.

            Ansel closed his texts and pressed the power button on his phone, allowing its screen to darken. Without looking, he put the phone back into his pocket. He had to keep Darcy out of this. The doctor could never know.

* * *

 

            As Darcy drove, he had his phone plugged into his dashboard. He was listening to his downloaded songs on shuffle. The doctor was unashamed to sing along with music in his car, so when he stepped on the gas pedal after the stop light on an intersection turned green, he started to tap his fingers on the steering wheel.

            “In the night, she hears him callin’. In the night, she’s _dan_ cin’ to relieve the pain, but she’ll never walk away~.” He sung in a low voice. “I don’t think you understand.”

            The roads were rather empty, which wasn’t much of a surprise to Darcy, seeing as it was Thanksgiving. Everyone was probably inside their homes already, whether they were celebrating the holiday or not. Darcy himself was lucky to get Thanksgiving off from work, but he had been saving up the hours he was allowed to take off for at least two of his three years as a doctor, so he had a lucky out.

            He was very excited to see his father. The last time he had visited had been the day after he moved into the apartment with Ansel. It was dark outside, and it got Darcy’s imagination running in his head, but he ignored his mind and just kept driving.

            “In the night, when she comes crawlin’, dollar bills and _tears_ keep fallin’ down her face. She’ll never walk away~.”

            That was when he spotted someone standing at a crosswalk. The light was green, so Darcy didn’t slow down, but he found himself a bit scared. He could make out little of the figure there, since it almost seemed to be more of a silhouette than a person, but he could see that it had its arms extended at its sides, and it looked like it had messy hair. If Darcy didn’t know any better, he could have sworn that it turned itself as he passed, staring him down with glowing blue eyes.

            Though he was a tad spooked, once he had driven past the crosswalk, the doctor shook his bad feeling off and turned up his music. “And I _know_ that she’s capable of anything, it’s riveting, but _when_ you wake up she’s always gone, gone, _gone_ ~!”

* * *

 

            It was ten past seven when Darcy pulled his car into park in his father’s driveway. He unplugged his phone from his dashboard, then decided to send a text to Ansel.

            “Made it here safely.” He wrote. “Are you alright?”

            There wasn’t a timely response, so Darcy closed his texts and turned off his phone’s screen before putting it into the pocket of his long white coat. After turning off his car’s engine, the doctor stepped out of his vehicle and headed up the steps to the front door. Then, he knocked a melodic knock, his sort of “trademark”, and waited for a moment. Less than a minute later, his father, who was three inches shorter than him and was wearing round-rimmed glasses, opened the door.

            “Dad.” Darcy greeted with a warm smile. “It’s good to see you.” However, his bad feeling came back when he saw how emotional his dad looked.

            “Darcy…” Suddenly, the older man hugged his son tightly, digging his fingers into the back of his coat.

            “Dad,” Darcy laughed nervously, “is everything okay?”

            “Yeah.” His dad answered. “Yes, everything’s fine. I just… I missed you, is all.”

            Darcy hugged his father back, patting his old man. “I missed you too, dad.”

            Mr. Adair had been divorced by his wife when Darcy was very young, however, it wasn’t a divorce fuelled by hatred. Darcy’s mother, a woman named Isabelle, just needed some time on her own to get her life sorted, and besides that, she and her husband just didn’t love each other anymore. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t love her son, however; she just thought it would be best to leave him with his father, since she knew she wouldn’t have the time to be a proper mother to him anyway. Or, at least, that was the story his father had told him. There were apparently no hard feelings on either side, but now that Darcy had moved out, the doctor figured his father must have been lonely.

            After he and his father started eating together, Darcy finally noticed that there was a strange emptiness in the air. Neither of them really seemed to know what to say to the other, and Darcy couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really bugging his father, what with the way his hands trembled as he ate.

            It must have been about five minutes before Darcy finally spoke up, asking, “Is everything really alright? You don’t look so good.” He got no response, though, so he cut a slice of turkey with his knife and started to bring it up to his mouth with his fork.

            “Darcy, have I told you recently how proud I am of you?”

            Darcy closed his mouth and put his fork down against his plate. “Uh… Well, you don’t need to say it for me to know.”

            His father nodded a bit. He quivered before continuing, with his voice cracking occasionally from emotion: “Well… I’m so proud of you, son. You’ve made me so happy. I’m a very proud father.”

            Darcy felt his brows furrow almost against his own will, and his eyes started to water a little, so he started trying to blink back his tears. “Dad…” He smiled.

            Mr. Adair took his napkin and used it to dab at the corners of his own eyes. “I’m sorry, I just… I have to let you know just how much I love you. You’re more important to me than anything else in the whole world. I just wanted you to know that.”

            “Dad, I already knew that.” Darcy quipped. “I love you, too. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

            That last sentence made Mr. Adair avert his eyes from his son altogether. “How’s your friend?” He asked.

            “Ansel?” Darcy poked at the turkey on his plate with his fork. “He’s still not sleeping very much. I’m a little worried about that. He seems alright, though. I was thinking about prescribing him some sleep aids.”

            “Don’t.”

            Darcy raised a brow. “Why not?”

            Mr. Adair changed the subject again. “Did you see it while you were driving here?”

            “See what? I’m confused.”

            “Did you see _anything?_ ”

            “Um…” Darcy tapped his fork against his plate in thought. “I mean, there was this creepy fellow at the crosswalk, but other than that, no.”

            “What did he look like?” His father seemed uncharacteristically serious.

            “I couldn’t tell. Dad, what’s this all about?”

            Mr. Adair looked down at his plate. “Nothing.” He muttered. “It’s nothing.”

            They didn’t say much of anything to each other until about half an hour later, when Darcy was getting ready to leave. Ansel hadn’t replied to his text, and in fact, hadn’t even read it yet, and for some reason he couldn’t entirely explain, that made Darcy feel a bit nervous.

            “I’d better get going.” He declared, but then noticed the dishes. “Oh. Actually, I’ll stay to—”

            “Nonsense.” His father assured him. “You’re a guest in this house now. I can handle a few dirty dishes.”

            Darcy smiled down at his father, then hugged him once more. They shared the embrace, and as they did, Darcy heard his father whisper something in his ear.

            “It will come to you as a former patient, but don’t let it into your office,” it sounded like. “Be careful.”

            “What?” Darcy mumbled back.

            His father pulled back from the hug, patting his son twice on the arm. “On the drive home. Take care. It’s dark out there.”

            “No, the part about the former patient.”

            His father shook his head. “I just said how much I love you. You must have misheard me.”

            Darcy found no reason to be suspicious, so he assumed he had just severely misunderstood his father’s words. “I love you too, dad.”

* * *

 

            By 8:30, Darcy was home. He let himself into the apartment, and was about to announce his entrance to Ansel until he saw feet dangling over the side of the couch. The TV was on, but the volume was low, so Darcy took off his boots, scarf, and coat, then quietly approached the sofa. He found Ansel laying on the couch, and if the man wasn’t asleep, then he was at least close enough to it to not stir when the doctor approached.

            Happy that his friend was finally getting some much needed rest, Darcy decided not to bother him, and instead went into the bedroom to prepare to go to sleep himself.

            The following morning, Darcy woke up early. Ansel was sitting at the kitchen table, doing something on his phone.

            “Have you been up very long?” Darcy asked as he walked into the kitchen, talking to Ansel through the space between the kitchen counter and the cupboards above it. The doctor poured himself a cup of coffee and put bread into the toaster to make himself some toast.

            “Yeah.” Ansel answered off-handedly.

            “How long?”

            “Since ten last night or something.”

            “Something the matter?”

            “I’m fine.”

            Darcy sighed. His toast popped up, and he began spreading butter over it. “Did I do something to piss you off?” He questioned.

            Ansel looked at his friend. “No. Why?”

            “It’s just, last night, my dad seemed upset. Now you seem frustrated, too. I feel like I’m to blame.”

            “I’m just frustrated that I couldn’t sleep more than three hours.” Ansel told him. “And I’m sure your dad wasn’t upset with you.”

            Fueled by that reassurance, Darcy took his coffee with him downstairs. He drove to the hospital and set himself up for the day. Everything was going normal as usual, but Darcy was sitting in his office, dwelling on his father’s strange behavior the prior night, when there was an urgent knock on his door.

            “It’s open,” He called. When the person on the other side of the door only knocked rougher, he stood up with a huff and approached the bright yellow door, pulling it open. He was startled to see Ansel there.

            “Darcy.” Ansel said. He looked worried.

            “Ansel.” Darcy was stunned. “What are you doing here?”

            “We need to talk. Right now.”

            Something didn’t feel right. Still, it was Ansel. What was the worst that could happen? “About what?” The doctor asked.

            “I’m seeing shit, Darc. Like, _really_ seeing it. I’m going crazy. Let me in, please.”

            He had never heard Ansel so freaked out. It was rare for the man to ever say “please”, too, which only added to Darcy’s concern. So, he stepped aside, allowing Ansel to rush in, and then he closed the door. “Ansel,” he began, “you didn’t need to come all the way here just to talk to me, you know? You could’ve just—” When Darcy turned around, Ansel wasn’t there. “—called me. Wh—… Where’d you go?”

            There was another door in Darcy’s office that led to a private exam room, but it creaked when it moved on its hinges, and Darcy hadn’t heard it. He was truly stumped, so he pulled out his phone and sent Ansel a text.

            “Where did you go?” He interrogated.

            A few seconds later, Ansel replied, “What do you mean?”

            “You were just in my office.”

            “Um, no? You have the car. How would I even get there?”

            There was another knock on the door, so Darcy, flustered, opened it. He saw Dr. Park standing there, which made him even more confused. The female doctor hardly ever even acknowledged his existence. In fact, the only time they ever talked was when Darcy wanted her to deliver bad news to patients for him. “Dr. Park?”

            “Dr. Adair.” She said his name in a low, serious tone. She seemed almost sympathetic, though about what, Darcy was unsure. He was baffled.

            “Uh, what, uh… What is it?”

            “I’m sorry.” The woman handed him a folder, which he took. It was his father’s medical records.

            “I don’t understand.” He told her. “These are—”

            “Yes. Your father, he…” She trailed off, as if trying to find the strength to continue. Darcy stared at her with wide eyes, giving her his full attention as his heart started to pound in his ears. Finally, she resumed, and what she said next brought Darcy to his knees.

            “Your father was found a few minutes ago. It looks like he committed suicide. I’m sorry.”


	3. Chapter 3

            All Darcy could hear was a ringing in his ears. He could make no sense of anything else that was said to him. It didn’t make sense. Why would his father commit suicide? Something had seemed _off_ , sure, but his father certainly didn’t seem suicidal! He wasn’t sure which of the emotions he felt was the most prevalent. Was it grief, or was it confusion? Anger, perhaps? Probably grief. He didn’t even let Dr. Park finish speaking before he closed the door to his office, locking her out. Had she been saying anything? He wasn’t sure—her mouth had been moving, but again, he couldn’t hear her. He found himself pulling out his phone, and he sent a text or two to Ansel, and though he could not remember exactly what he’d written, there was a frantic knock on his office door before he knew it, pulling him out of his trance at least enough for him to raise his head.

            “Darcy?” It was Ansel. “Darcy, open up, man.”

            His legs felt like they were made of jelly, but Darcy managed to reach the door and open it. Ansel stepped in quickly, closing the door behind himself. “That was quick,” The doctor droned.

            Ansel scoffed as he began pacing the floor. “I practically ran here, but I wouldn’t call it quick.” The man grabbed Darcy by the arms, holding him firmly and staring him in the eye. “Are you alright? Man, you’re _very_ pale.”

            “My dad is…” Darcy couldn’t find the strength to continue, but thankfully, Ansel nodded in understanding, so instead, he muttered, “You were just here.”

            “No, I… I really wasn’t.” Ansel laughed sympathetically as he grazed his fingers across Darcy’s stubble-coated cheek. “I was at home, man, you know that. I don’t leave the house unless I have to, and I don’t have to until Monday.”

            “They said it was suicide,” Darcy returned to the reason Ansel had shown up in the first place. “That he…”

            “Come on, let it out. That’s what I’m here for.” Ansel smirked. “Well, and to drive you home. But still.”

            “No, I…” Darcy grabbed Ansel’s hand, pulling it off of his own face. “I’ve got work to do. I can’t just… I can’t just _leave._ ”

            Ansel stared at his friend in concern. “Darc, your dad is gone. Of course you can leave. You’re not going to be very productive right now.”

            “I’m fine.” Darcy said, though he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. “I’m just peachy.” However, as he turned and reached for the doorknob, the realization finally hit him like a sack of bricks; his father was _dead_. Just the night before, Darcy was having dinner with the man, and now he was dead, and he had apparently killed himself. He hadn’t even said goodbye. When the doctor’s legs buckled beneath him, his friend grabbed him and tried to keep him standing, but they both ended up on their knees.

            “Darcy…”

            Darcy began to weep. Ansel pulled him close, embracing him, but it did little to comfort either of them, so he started to stroke the doctor’s tangled hair. Darcy just kept crying. He felt that nothing would ever be able to make his tears stop. He loved his father, he really did. If he had known, if he had only seen the signs—and there must have been signs—he might have been able to prevent his father’s death.

            “That’s it, Peanut,” Ansel crooned dolefully, “Let it out. I’m here for you…”

* * *

 

            It was early Monday morning before Darcy finally came out of his room. Ansel had been in the bathroom, but when he came out, he was startled to see his friend sitting at the kitchen table, staring off into space. For the past three days, the doctor had been taking leave from work, and Ansel hadn’t heard so much as a peep from him, unless he decided to count the sobs. He had been giving Darcy food by placing it in front of the bedroom door, but other than that, he mostly left the man alone to grieve, deciding that if he needed someone to talk to, he would come out. Finally, he was out of the bedroom, but Ansel wasn’t sure what that meant. The air didn’t feel any less tense in the apartment.

            Deciding to give the situation the benefit of the doubt, Ansel stepped into the kitchen, looking at Darcy’s profile through the gap between the counter and the cupboards. “Hey there, Peanut… You feeling a bit better?” He asked in a gentle voice. He worried he might sound too patronizing, but he ignored his fear. Darcy didn’t respond. His hair was even messier than normal, so he couldn’t see Darcy’s eyes from his side, but he could see that the doctor was frowning. He was wearing only a baggy grey t-shirt and blue slacks. Overall, he looked like a mess. Ansel only then noticed the notepad sitting on the table in front of his friend; the page was almost made entirely black with pen scribbles, which made Ansel wonder if Darcy had been writing on that one page for the last three days. “You, uh… You want some coffee?”

            He got no response, so he grabbed a mug and started to pour Darcy a cup anyway. His hands were shaky. Admittedly, he was scared shitless by how badly Darcy was handling his father’s suicide. The man that was once the happiest person he knew was suddenly so completely and utterly closed off to everyone… even to him. That was what scared him more than anything: the fact that not even _he_ could seem to get through to Darcy anymore.

            Trying to keep his composure, Ansel opened the fridge. He, personally, wasn’t a fan of coffee, so he opted to drink soda instead. He practically lived off of caffeine with how little he slept, but while he’d been able to sleep for very short intervals for the past two months, he had presently been awake (and very worried) for the past 72 hours _at least_. After grabbing himself a can of root beer, Ansel took hold of the mug and walked around the counter. As he placed the coffee down on the wooden table for Darcy, he snuck a peek at the notepad; written on it seemed to be notes of some sort, but they reminded Ansel more of the rambled nonsensical scribbles of a man driven mad by stress, and that line of thought didn’t help him cope any better. His phone dinged in his pocket again. He had been receiving more texts from Jay than usual, and with Darcy constantly in, he was concerned that his obsessive ex-friend would soon leave a message on the landline’s answering machine. He worried about how long he would be able to keep Darcy in the dark about the psycho knowing their home phone number. However, on the flipside, he reasoned, Darcy was safe with him. He just had to keep Jay away somehow.

            Ansel took his seat across the table from Darcy. He didn’t look at the man until he’d popped open the top of the can, and when he did, he scanned the doctor’s face with his eyes. Darcy’s light brown eyes were red and puffy. Clearly, he had been crying very recently, if not only minutes prior. What made the doctor come out at that moment, however, Ansel had no idea. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have said that the expression on Darcy’s face was one of stubborn determination.

            “So… What do you have there?” Ansel inquired softly, referring to the notepad. Darcy hardly even twitched, much less bothered to make any sort of recognition to the words spoken to him at all. Trying to lighten the mood, Ansel chuckled and asked, “Look, you’re not gonna go all _Shining_ on me, are you? None of this ‘all work and no play makes Darcy a dull boy’ shit, right?” Again, his words were ignored, so his cheeky grin faded from his cheeks. Two or three minutes of silence must have passed before Ansel finally sighed. “Look,” he started, “I get it, alright? This is none of my business, and I can’t possibly understand your pain, yadda yadda, jabber jabber, all that jazz. You don’t want to burden anyone with your problems, or whatever. But let me be honest with you right now, man: you’re scaring the _hell_ outta me. I don’t know what to do. Nothing I say or do seems to help you at all. Darcy, please.” He leaned closer to the table. “ _Please_ , I’m _begging_ you, Darcy, you _have_ to _let me in._ ”

            “It wasn’t a suicide.” Darcy stated abruptly.

            “What?”

            Not saying anything else, Darcy lift his right arm. He turned the notepad around before pushing it toward Ansel, so the slightly-shorter man took it.

            “I can’t make much sense of this, Darc.”

            “Read it.”

            Ansel looked at the page and quickly became overwhelmed by the disorder on the paper in front of him. “Where do I begin? Can I get a diagram of what order to read any of this in?”

            “Listen to me.” Darcy insisted. “They said it was a suicide, but it _wasn’t_.”

            “What gives you that impression?”

            “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.”

            “Yeah, I can tell.” Ansel put the notepad down and took a swig of his soda.

            “My dad was genuinely terrified of something. I noticed while I was there. He was quiet. He said something to me before I left that I thought I misheard, but I think now that it was a warning. Something’s amiss, Ansel. Something _killed_ my father, and if he was right, then it’s coming after me next!”

            Ansel raised his brows almost unintentionally, but he didn’t say anything despite the fact that what was coming out of Darcy’s mouth sounded borderline insane.

            “I just can’t figure out _why._ Why him? Why _me?_ What does this son of a bitch want?” Digging his fingers into his rats’ nest of hair, Darcy wracked his brain, but came up with nothing. “There’s no motive. No one wanted my father dead.” He paused. “There was something, though. The dark silhouette at the crosswalk.”

            Ansel reached his hand out across the table, but couldn’t even reach Darcy’s elbows. “Look, Darcy,” he muttered, “no offense, but I think you’re probably overthinking this. You’ve gotta chill out.”

            “He told me it would come to me as a former patient, and not to let it into my office. Who do I see the next morning at the hospital? You, a former patient.”

            “I don’t know how many times you need me to say it, but I really wasn’t there.”

            “Exactly!” The doctor shouted. “It wasn’t you! I let that _thing_ into my office, and it disappeared! God knows what it’s doing now. Maybe it’s been watching me for the past however-long-I-was-in-there!”

            “You were cooped up for three days.” Ansel answered the indirect question.

            Darcy put his face in his palm. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled, “that long?”

            “Yep.” The insomniac took a sip off of the can, then took a quiet, concerned exhale. “Darcy, I wouldn’t worry about this. I know you want to justify what your father did, but what you’re saying is just crazy.”

            “Damn it, Ansel, I’m telling you, I am _one hundred percent sure_ that my father was murdered!”

            “Well, what do you hope to do about it?” Ansel demanded. “Track the bastard down and kill him yourself? Get your dad’s supposed killer arrested?”

            “Okay, so you’re telling me that I _didn’t_ see a dark figure in the street on Thursday? That my father just up and decided to off himself, but not before telling me something about a former patient?” Darcy slammed his hands down on the table. “If I’m acting crazy, then tell me what you were doing in my office. Why did you show up telling me you were seeing shit? Where did you go when I turned my back? Why did it take you forty minutes to show up after I sent you a text?!”

            “Because I was never there!” Ansel defended himself. “Darcy, snap out of it! Think about what you’re saying and tell me it doesn’t sound absolutely crazy!”

            Darcy actually did think about it. Ansel had a point: it _did_ sound crazy. He worried for just a second that he really was just overthinking things, or worse, losing his mind, but then he remembered the silhouette, and he shook his head. “Ansel, I’m sorry.” He murmured. “I know, I sound like I’ve had a psychotic break. Maybe I have. I’m not sure anymore. But I know what I saw, and I know what I heard. My father was trying to warn me about something, and I didn’t realize what it was until it was too late. He knew he was going to die when he saw me, but I don’t think he wanted to. I know in my bones, in my heart, in my _whole being_ that it was _not_ a suicide. I just need you to trust my judgment, just this once.” Darcy looked at Ansel, making genuine eye contact with him for the first time in three days. “Please.”

            Ansel frowned, but soon nodded. “Fine.” He agreed. “Maybe you’re right. It wasn’t a suicide. But now what?”

            “I need to figure out what killed him, and how. And while I’m at it, what he was trying to warn me about, considering I probably already ignored his warning… Ow.” Darcy brought his fingers to his lower lip when he felt a sudden pain.

            “Darc?”

            When the doctor drew back his fingers, he saw a bit of blood. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He hadn’t even opened his mouth that wide, and he wasn’t one to chew at his lips.

            “Your lip’s split.” Ansel pointed out, though he seemed just as confused as Darcy felt. “We should buy some chapstick.”

            “Yeah…” Darcy couldn’t ignore the deep pit that had appeared in his stomach. Something felt terribly, terribly wrong. The phone began to ring, but Darcy was too busy trying to figure out what was bothering him to pay any mind to it.

            “You okay?” His friend asked.

            “Something’s wrong.” He answered.

            “Should I get that?” Ansel looked at the phone.

            “Something’s seriously wrong.” The doctor started to tap his fingers against the table. He couldn’t describe what he was feeling with any words other than “hot”, “tingly”, and the sensation of a frantic flutter in his chest. He felt… panicked.

            The phone stopped ringing, and their answering machine message started to play.

            “Hey, you’ve reached the home phone of Darcy Adair—” Darcy’s voice chirped.

            “—and Ansel Hunnisett.” Ansel’s voice added.

            Then, Darcy’s continued, “We can’t come to the phone right now, so feel free to leave a message after the beep, and we’ll call you back once we get the chance!”

            The beep followed, and then the caller started talking… or, rather, _shouting._

            “Ansel, answer the phone!” It was Jay. “Answer my texts! Just _acknowledge_ me!”

            Ansel felt his face blanch, and he gulped. He could feel Darcy’s eyes on him already, but he kept his mouth shut.

            “Who is that?” Darcy asked.

            “I, um…”

            “I know you’re still there! You don’t leave until eight, and it’s seven right now! _Pick. Up. The. Phone!_ ”

            “That’s your friend, isn’t it? How on earth did he get our number, Ansel?”

            “Look, remember how I said he was a psycho?” Ansel stammered nervously. “I wasn’t kidding. If you looked up the term ‘whackjob’ in a dictionary, you would find his picture.”

            Jay continued. “I’m coming to see you. If you’re not in, I’ll go to your current employer. She’ll tell me where you are. You can’t hide from me, Ansel. This cute little game of yours has _got_ to end!”

            Darcy watched Ansel slam his can of soda down before jumping to his feet and taking long strides toward the phone. “Ansel, wai—” He wasn’t quick enough, as by the time he was halfway through his warning, Ansel had already picked up the receiver.

            “Jay.” Ansel snarled.

            “Oh, Ansel,” Jay sighed, “it’s so good to hear your voice. Thank you for answering.”

            “Do _not_ call this number again.”

            “There’s no reason to be rude. I’m just worried about you.”

            “What part of ‘I don’t want you in my life anymore’ don’t you understand? Leave—me—alone.”

            Jay scoffed. “Look. I don’t know what this Darcy fellow said to brainwash you, but you and I are a thing, you understand? I’m not going to give up on you. I know I can win your love back, buddy!”

            Ansel rolled his eyes. “Okay, so, what, you’re going to go back in time and change the past, is that it?”

            “Well, no, but I can show you what happens to people who steal. Maybe after that, you’ll think twice about running off with somebody else.”

            “Don’t talk to me ever again.” Ansel slammed the receiver down and stood in front of the phone for a few seconds. When the phone rang again, he picked up the receiver, then immediately put it back down. His cellphone dinged shortly after, so he pulled it out of the pocket of his jeans and turned it off altogether.

            “What did he say?” Darcy inquired, though he had an idea given Ansel’s reaction.

            “Crazy, stalker-y things.” Ansel replied brusquely. “As usual. Said he’d instill the fear of God in me or some shit for running off on my own.”

            “You gonna be alright?”

            Ansel put his phone down on the counter. “Don’t worry about me. You’ve got bigger problems than I do right now. Jay’s all bark and no bite.”

            “If you say so…” Darcy mumbled. “He sounded pretty crazy from what I could hear, though. Like, _determined_ crazy.”

            “Yeah, well, not the first ‘determined crazy’ I’ve heard this morning.”

            Darcy managed to crack a small smile. The odd feeling he felt had passed, but he couldn’t shake the thought that something bad had happened. He couldn’t figure out what it meant, though.

            “You have blood running down your chin.” Ansel told him.

            Darcy picked up the bottom of his shirt and used it to wipe the blood off of his face. His lip hadn’t split too badly, but it was in fact bleeding, so he pressed the grey fabric to his lip, leaving his abdomen exposed.

            Ansel scratched the back of his head, seeming a tad flustered by something. “I guess I should start getting ready to go.”

            Darcy dropped his shirt. “No.” He blurted.

            “Huh?”

            “I mean, yes. But you’re coming with me.”

            Ansel raised a brow again. “But, Darc, I’ve got a job to do.”

            “Well, tell them they’ll have to wait.”

            “I can’t just do that.”

            “Ansel, I’m frightened, alright? Just humor me.”

            With a sigh, Ansel gave in. There was no point in arguing, he figured. “Can I at least know where we’re going, then?”

            “To the morgue. I have to see my father. Something killed him, and I’m going to find out what.”


	4. Chapter 4

            It was dark. Ansel wasn’t sure where exactly he was, but it was _very_ dark, and all he could see was pitch black. He tried to remember how he’d wound up there, but the last thing he remembered was… He couldn’t remember. It had something to do with Darcy, that much he recalled, but beyond that, he was lost.

            “Darc?” He hollered, hoping that he wasn’t in the darkness all by himself. “Darcy? Anyone?”

            There was no response. There was only a mechanical click of some sort, and then Ansel saw a spotlight come on to his right. It gave only enough light for him to see the floor in a certain circumference underneath itself.

            “Well,” he muttered under his breath, “this isn’t creepy at all.” There didn’t seem to be any other options, so the man took a few deep breaths and began walking toward the light in the dark. As he did, another snapped on further down the path. Since this kept happening, Ansel started to run.

            He stopped, however, when he heard another light turn on, but found that it wasn’t in front of him. He was standing in pitch darkness, so he turned to his right once more. There was a lit area there. He rolled his eyes, confused by the sudden change of path until he actually tried to walk to it, only to walk right into something. Rubbing his nose, he stepped back. It looked like he could pass through, so what was stopping him? He put his hand out, finding a solid surface upon which he was able to flatten his palm.

            “Glass,” he scoffed. “There’s a glass wall. Now I feel stupid.”

            That was when he saw Darcy. The doctor stepped into the light behind the glass, looking around. Ansel pressed himself closer to the near-invisible wall separating them the minute he recognized him.

            “Ansel?” His friend called out. “Hello?”

            “Darcy!” Ansel started banging his palm against the glass, making a few loud _thunk_ s. “Over here!”

            It didn’t seem like the doctor could hear him, as Darcy just kept looking around.

            “Darc? Come on, man, look over here!” He jumped up and down a few times, waving his arms about, before remembering that he was standing in pitch black. Besides, even if Darcy _could_ see or hear him, the light reflecting off of the glass would probably make it hard to distinguish what exactly he was looking at.

            It was very subtle at first, but after a few seconds, Ansel was able to see it: there was someone behind Darcy. He didn’t know who it was, but his mind automatically assumed that it was Jay, and he felt panic flood his system. “Oh God.” He began pounding on the glass even more wildly than before. “Darcy, turn around! Dar—” He stopped when the figure was illuminated by the light. His jaw dropped, and he did nothing but gawk. It wasn’t possible, what he was seeing. It didn’t make any sense. The person standing behind Darcy… _was him._

            It happened in an instant. Ansel watched his own hand clamp onto Darcy’s shoulder, and before the doctor could even react, a long blade was stabbed through—literally _through_ —his chest with a spurt of crimson and what could only be subhuman strength. He could hear Darcy choke in a mixture of shock and pain.

            “DARCYY!!”

            Trembling and only half conscious, Darcy glanced over his shoulder at his killer. “ _Ansel,_ ” Despite everything, the doctor said the name with more love than hurt.

            “You always were a pain in my ass.”

            Ansel covered his mouth when he realized that the words had come not just from his doppelgänger’s lips, but from his own as well. With those cruel final words still hanging in the air, he saw his other self shove Darcy off of the blade, and watched the doctor crumple first to his knees, a stream of blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth, then down onto his stomach. He found himself just staring. Darcy couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t believe it. Outwardly, he was silent, but the noises of grief he made in his head were indescribable.

            Slowly, he looked up at his other self, only to find it to be staring right at him. He slammed his fist against the glass one last time, tears beginning to drip down his face as he snarled. “You son of a bitch…!” He cursed in a sob. “Not Darcy…! _Oh God, Darcy!_ ”

            It was at that point that he jolted awake, screaming and unaware of his surroundings until he heard Darcy’s startled voice.

            “Jesus!” The doctor gasped. “Calm down, Ansel! Are you alright?!”

            Ansel frantically tried to figure out what was going on. He found that he was in the passenger seat of Darcy’s car. Then he remembered: they were driving to the hospital to double check the body and autopsy report for Darcy’s father. Panting, the slightly-shorter man slicked back his light brown hair, but it only fell back at the sides of his face when he put his hand back down. “Was I asleep?” He asked. His heart was still racing from what he could only assume was a nightmare, even though he hadn’t dreamt at all in months.

            “Yeah, for about ten minutes…” Darcy answered in a mutter. “Everything alright? You scared the shit out of me!”

            Just relieved that his friend wasn’t actually dead, Ansel looked at him as he drove and smiled. “Oh, Darcy. I could kiss you right now.”

            “I’ll assume that means you’re okay.”

* * *

 

            They got to the hospital around eight in the morning. Once he found a staff-only parking spot and put the car in park, Darcy looked over at Ansel. After the comment about kissing him, the younger man—he was about seven years younger than Darcy, who was 34 despite not looking a day over 25—hadn’t said very much. He just stared off into space, lost in his own thoughts. The doctor stared at his friend for a long moment in silence, waiting for him to notice the eyes on him. When it didn’t do any good, Darcy leaned back and sighed.

            “Ansel,” he softly pleaded, “Come on. Moping like this is _my_ shtick right now.”

            Finally, Ansel snapped out of it. “Huh? Oh, sorry.”

            “You good?” Darcy inquired.

            “Yeah, I’m okay.”

            The pair left the car, and Darcy spun the key ring around his finger before slipping it into the right-hand pocket of his black pants. Ansel had always admired Darcy’s long and skinny legs, but he had never said anything of it. While he did occasionally make jokes about admiring Darcy as more than a friend, he felt like rambling about Darcy’s legs would be a bit too gay for him to just laugh off.

            The doctor made Ansel follow him up the stairs, which the younger man lightly griped about the entire way up to the main floor, and then they headed through the lobby to get to the hallways. They were stopped by Ryan, who just happened to be working the front desk, and Darcy felt his eyebrows sink in disappointment.

            “Well, if it isn’t Dr. Adair. Haven’t seen _you_ in a while.” Ryan mused sarcastically.

            “Can it, Ryan.” Darcy denied. “We’re looking for Dr. Park.”

            Ryan seemed taken aback by Darcy’s firm tone, and he lowered his head. “Geez, who pissed in _your_ Cheerios? She’s in her office.”

            “Come on, Ansel.” The taller man walked through the double doors in front of them, revealing the hall that his office and Dr. Park’s were in. Ansel followed him closely; admittedly, hospitals made him nervous, though he had never told Darcy of this. However, his mild uncomfortable feeling almost seemed worse that day. Something was bugging him, but he wasn’t sure what. He felt anxious.

            Once they were standing in front of the pale yellow door with the nametag “DR. A. PARK” on it, Darcy knocked his usual, melodic knock. After a few seconds, the door opened, and Ansel caught his first sight of the female doctor; she was quite tall for a woman, and she was clearly of Asian descent. Probably Chinese, Ansel assumed from her tan skin. She looked up at Darcy with black eyes that were behind black-rimmed glasses, and she almost seemed surprised to see her co-worker back so soon.

            “Dr. Adair.” She remarked in a puzzled manner.

            “Hey, Dr. Park.” Darcy greeted. Looking at him, Ansel noticed that he looked a bit flustered while talking to the woman. The doctor continued, “Look, I know you’re not technically supposed to…”

            “ _Don’t_ ask to see your father.” The lady crossed her arms over her chest. She seemed to know what Darcy was thinking, and upon realizing that, the doctor only grinned sheepishly.

            “I know, I know. It’s just…” He frowned again. “I need to. I also need his autopsy report.”

            “Why?”

            “Just humor us, Doc.” Ansel responded.

            “I don’t take orders from patients,” Dr. Park informed him in a sardonic chirp.

            “Dr. Park, please.” Darcy pleaded. “I really need to do this. Call it my way of coping.”

            With a sigh, the woman turned and grabbed a folder from her office, then returned to them and slapped it against Darcy’s chest. “Then you’re one sick puppy, Dr. Adair. Follow me.” She pushed past them, beginning to walk down the hall the way they came.

            Ansel elbowed Darcy. “You’re so into her.” He laughed.

            “Shut up,” the doctor blushed.

* * *

 

            “This is him.” Dr. Park announced as she put her hand on the handle to pull out the corpse slab. She hesitated before pulling it out, however, and looked at Darcy. “Are you sure you want to do this?” She asked him.

            Darcy nodded. “Yeah,” he assured her.

            Reluctantly, she pulled open the shelving unit, revealing a corpse. Darcy wasn’t surprised, but it still took a massive hit on his emotional strength to see that it really was his father lying dead before him.

            “Oh, dad…” He whimpered.

            Ansel said nothing, but inwardly, he thought about how tragic it was that his first time seeing Darcy’s father was seeing him dead in a morgue. With his hands buried in the pockets of his hoodie, he took a good look at the cadaver before him.

            “The autopsy revealed that his neck was broken.” Dr. Park mentioned matter-of-factly. “His organs were healthy. He was unharmed other than a few bruises and a shattered upper spinal column.”

            Darcy slowly shook his head in disbelief, still unable to wrap his head around his father’s death. The bruises on his dad’s neck caught his eye first. “How?” He questioned openly.

            “He was found hanging in his closet.”

            That was when Darcy looked up at her. “My dad’s closet isn’t that tall.” He objected. “I mean, he could have suffocated, sure, but… There’s no way he could have broken his neck. It’s impossible.”

            Dr. Park shrugged her shoulders. “That’s what they told the coroner.”

            Ansel stepped forward and moved one of his pockets forward briefly, gesturing to Mr. Adair’s left shoulder. “What’s _this_ bruise, though?”

            Darcy looked down. On his father’s shoulder, there was a bruise in the shape of a handprint. The fingertips dug into the skin just above the old man’s breast.

            “No one’s sure.” Dr. Park admitted. “It’s from a hand, obviously, but…”

            “But my father couldn’t possibly have done that to himself.” Darcy finished her sentence. “He would’ve had to bend his arm in the wrong direction to do that.”

            “So someone else was there?” Ansel inquired.

            “Don’t ask me.” Dr. Park muttered. “I wasn’t there. I just read the autopsy report. Besides, it could be old.”

            “It looks just as recent as the bruises around his throat.” If Darcy didn’t know any better, he would’ve pointed out that the bruises on his dad’s neck looked more like signs of strangulation than mere hanging, but who was he to argue with the coroner’s opinion?

            Ansel took a closer look at the handprint on Mr. Adair’s shoulder. He thought back on his nightmare, and remembered how his other self clamped his hand down onto Darcy’s left shoulder, the same shoulder the hand print was on for Mr. Adair. “Was there anything odd on his back?” He asked in a shaky breath.

            “I don’t recall anything being mentioned in the report.”

            Darcy opened the folder he’d been handed and skimmed the report. “She’s right.” He commented.

            “His heart?”

            “Perfectly normal.” Darcy continued. “Why?”

            “Just curious.” When Ansel stood upright, he felt himself jump slightly when he heard a metallic clattering noise across the room, as if something fell over. He looked in that direction, but the table of supplies beside the door was untouched.

            “Ansel?” Darcy looked where Ansel was staring, but saw nothing of interest. “What is it?”

            “Did you hear that?” He questioned.

            “Hear what?”

            “That clang. Something fell.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            Ansel took his hands out of his pockets and started to wipe them down on the legs of his pants. His palms had a tendency to sweat when he was nervous, which he was very much so. In fact, he was so nervous that he felt short of breath.

            “Dude. You okay?”

            The younger man struggled to catch his breath, managing a brief chuckle. “Gonna be honest, Darc,” he laughed, “I feel like I’m having a panic attack.”

            Taking charge of the situation, Darcy snapped his fingers at Dr. Park, who jolted from the gesture. “Get a chair.” He ordered.

            “Darc—” Ansel was cut off.

            “Save your breath,” instructed the doctor before turning back to his co-worker. “A chair.”

            Dr. Park left the room, leaving Darcy and Ansel alone with Mr. Adair’s corpse. Darcy rest his hands on Ansel’s shoulders.

            “Been a month since I had a panic attack.” Ansel remarked anxiously.

            “Look at me.”

            “I’m lookin’.”

            “It’ll be okay. I need you to try to relax.”

            “Something’s got me real frightened, Peanut.”

            The door opened, and in came Dr. Park with a folded metal chair. She put it against the wall across from the opened slab and unfolded it there, allowing Darcy to sit his friend down on it.

            “Bring him twenty milligrams of Valium, would you?” Darcy asked her.

            “Darcy.” Ansel scolded lightly, since he didn’t want to cause any trouble.

            “Are you sure?” Dr. Park questioned Darcy’s order.

            “Look, he’s had panic attacks before. I should’ve prescribed him something earlier. Just get him the Valium, please.”

            The other doctor was clearly uncertain, but she finally agreed. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Keep him calm.” She told him before rushing out of the room again.

            “Keep me calm?” Ansel quipped, clasping and unclasping his trembling hands between his legs. “I’m sitting in front of a corpse!”

            “Hey, focus on me, Ansel.” Darcy spoke softly, putting his hand on the side of Ansel’s head and looking him straight in the eyes. “I’m here. You’re going to be alright.”

            “I’ve gotta get out of here, Darc.”

            “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

            “Hold me.”

            Willing to do whatever Ansel wanted in the hopes of soothing him, Darcy wrapped his arms around his friend, who grabbed him and tried to hold him tighter. He softly shushed him, beginning to rub his back with his right hand. He could feel Ansel’s pounding heart through his chest, against his own, racing like a jackrabbit.

            He wasn’t usually much of a hands-on sort of doctor when it came to comforting others, but with Ansel, Darcy could make exceptions. Their close and quickly-built friendship had brought with it was certain degree of intimacy that made him feel comfortable doing things like hugging the man, even without reason, though he didn’t do it very often. While holding Ansel at that moment, he began to wonder if he should hug his friend more often, and if that would make either of them uncomfortable somehow.

            They stayed in each other’s arms in near silence until Dr. Park returned with a needle.

            “I said twenty milligrams.” Darcy told her when he saw that she hadn’t returned with what he’d asked for.

            “This _is_ twenty milligrams.” She countered. “Or, well, the equivalent: point four milliliters of Diazepam.”

            “I meant in tablet form. He’s scared of needles.”

            “This isn’t a pharmacy, Dr. Adair.” She turned to Ansel when Darcy pulled away and stood up. “What are you wearing under that sweater?”

            “A t-shirt.” He answered. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna—”

            “Take off everything down to the t-shirt.”

            “ _Everything?_ ” Ansel chimed, still able to make a joke amidst his panic. When the woman narrowed her eyes at him, he sobered up and nodded. “Alright, got it.” He then took off his coat and slipped off his sweater, and as he did, he realized just how cold it was in the morgue.

            “Keep your arm still against the arm of the chair.” Dr. Park commanded.

            “ _Holy SHIT I hate needles._ ”

            Feeling the doctor’s small, cold fingers on his inner elbow, Ansel pinched his eyes shut. He wasn’t a very squeamish man until needles were involved, at which point he became one of the _most_ squeamish. She swabbed the area with a decontaminating swab, then, without warning, he felt the cold steel prick him, stabbing into his arm, and he kicked his right foot in response. A few seconds later, he was already starting to calm down due to the Diazepam flowing through his system.

            “Slower,” Darcy warned.

            “I know what I’m doing.”

            After a little over twenty seconds, Dr. Park removed the needle from Ansel’s arm and placed a dry cotton ball over the spot she punctured, pressing it in. “Don’t move for a few minutes.” She instructed.

            “Sure, you’re the boss.” Ansel grunted in a tone that almost sounded like sarcasm, though he did seem to be obeying her regardless.

            Dr. Park stood up and pulled the needle’s cap from her coat pocket, and during this action, Darcy gazed at her.

            “Thanks.” He said timidly as she capped the needle.

            “You owe me, for all of this.” She replied, then offhandedly told him, “There’s a patient upstairs demanding to see you. Ryan wanted to take him, but he kept insisting that he had to talk to _you_ , so I think Ryan let him into your office.”

            Darcy rolled his eyes and tapped his foot against the floor. “Goddamn _Ryan_.” He hissed in a voice thick with contempt. “ _Always_ Ryan.”

            “You should go deal with that, Dr. Adair. I’ll keep an eye on your patient and bring him up to my office when he’s ready to walk.”

            “I’m not a _patient_.” Ansel ranted. “I’m a _friend_.”

            “Alright.” Darcy reluctantly agreed to his co-worker’s suggestion. He took one last glance at his father, silently vowing that he would do everything in his power to find out the truth, then at Ansel, who seemed to be quietly pleading for him to stay. “I’ll see you in a bit, Ansel. Duty calls.”

            “Heh, heh, ‘duty’.” Ansel snickered, his mind in the gutter.

            Darcy shook his head as he pushed the door open, and he wasn’t able to keep the dorkish grin that ensued off of his face. “What a dumbass,” he affectionately remarked under his breath.

* * *

 

            When Darcy got upstairs, he saw Ryan standing by his office door with a clipboard in hand. He approached the nurse with a serious expression, and when he was seen, the nurse turned toward him, holding out the clipboard for him. He took it, and then Ryan started to talk.

            “Got him to fill that out.” He announced with what could have been an undeserved sense of pride. “He’s inside.”

            “Why did you let him into my office?” Darcy interrogated.

            “I didn’t want him disturbing anyone in the halls. He was _shouting_ for you.” Ryan did a corkscrew gesture by his head, then pat Darcy on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you to it.”

            “Thanks.” There was little to no enthusiasm in Darcy’s voice as he watched the nurse leave. Once he knew Ryan was gone, he looked down at the clipboard. The patient’s name was James Thorne. As for why he was there, he had only written, in neat, all capital handwriting, “WE NEED TO TALK.”

            “Sure we do.” Darcy grumbled to himself. Composing himself, he opened the door, and found the man he assumed to be James sitting in a chair in front of his desk. The young man, who looked to be about Ansel’s age, had short black hair and sideburns running down the sides of his face. On his chin, he had a long soul patch. When he heard the door open, he looked up at Darcy, nodding at him as his knee bobbed. Though he was sitting down, Darcy could tell he was both shorter and stockier than Ansel was. Not really knowing what else to do, Darcy nodded back and closed the door before taking his seat behind the desk. “So, James,” he began, “You say we need to talk?”

            “Oh,” James laughed, “you don’t have to call me that.”

            “What would you prefer I call you, then?” Darcy asked, putting the clipboard and his father’s medical file down on his desk and trying to get comfortable.

            “Call me _Jay_.”


	5. Chapter 5

            “That’s a nasty cut on your lip,” Jay snickered as he leaned back in his chair, watching Dr. Adair’s face pale. “How’d that happen?”

            Darcy didn’t say anything. If he had known that he was about to sit down right in front of Ansel’s obsessive former friend, he would’ve left the hospital instead. Unfortunately, there he was, alone in his office with Jay himself, and he didn’t know what to do. His office had windows, but they had blinds over them, and the doctor glanced at them; if Ansel were to walk by with Dr. Park, would Jay be able to see them? He assumed so, and it made him nervous, but he put his gaze back on Jay. “Jay, then.” He whispered, ignoring the question that had been asked. Feigning a small smile, Darcy secretly reached his right hand up under his desk, aiming to press the little red button to call security. He, personally, had never used the button before, but it seemed there really were firsts for everything.

            “Don’t even think about pressing that button.” Jay remarked suddenly, causing Darcy to freeze. “That’s right. I took the liberty of looking around your office a bit. I know about that red button under your desk.”

            Darcy indiscreetly clasped his hands over his lap. “Fine.” He spoke. “You’ve got me. Now, are you here for a reason, or are you just here to torture Ansel?”

            Jay scoffed and brought his hand to his chest. He seemed offended. “ _Me_ torture _him?_ What lies has he spoon-fed to you? You’ve got it all wrong, Dr. Adair: I’m not here to torture him. I’m here to get vengeance.”

            “By torturing him?” Darcy inquired with raised brows.

            The man shook his head with a sigh, then admit, “I can’t expect you to understand. You’ve only heard Ansel’s side of the story. It’s fine that way, though. You don’t need to know why I’m doing this.”

            “What do you want from him?”

            “Companionship. I can’t seem to get that, though.” Jay pointed at him. “Yet, you have. So, that only leaves one question for me: why _you?_ Why are you worthy of his affection, but I’m not?”

            “That was _two_ questions.” Darcy told him flatly.

            “Still,” Jay remarked, ignoring his attitude, “it’s good that you and I see eye-to-eye. I got what you asked for.”

            Darcy furrowed his brows in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

            “You know. The footage. From the security camera.”

            “I don’t understand what you’re saying. What security camera?”

            Jay gave him a funny look. “You mean you really don’t remember?”

            “Remember _what?_ ”

            Jay snickered again. He reached down to a bag under his chair that Darcy hadn’t even noticed was there and pulled it up onto his lap. As he dug through it, Darcy unclasped his hands and started reaching for the button again, just in case Jay pulled a gun on him or something. Instead, however, the man revealed a CD in a clear case. He put it down on the desk, then pressed his fingers against it and pushed it closer to Darcy. “You might want to _watch_ this, then, rather than destroy it.” He instructed with a malevolent smirk. Disturbed, Darcy stared daggers at Jay, glancing occasionally from him down to the CD. After the third or fourth time he did his, he held his gaze on the man, and shortly after, Jay zipped up his bag and stood up, wrapping the straps over his arms and holding them at his sides. “I’ll let myself out.” He announced, then opened the door. Before leaving, he turned back and said one final thing: “Tell Ansel I said hello.”

            The door closed, and Darcy vacantly glanced down. The CD was still there. He could only imagine what was on it, and why Jay thought he had asked for it, considering they had never spoken so much as a word to each other, and had only just met for the first time less than two minutes prior. Then, he started to worry about what he would tell Ansel, or if he even _should_ tell him. It was with great reluctance that he reached forward and picked up the CD case, popping it open.

            The CD was brand new by the looks of it. Written across it in black marker that was already fading were the words, “For Darcy”. There was nothing else in or on the case; no further indications as to what the CD might contain. Just holding the disc in his hand made him feel anxious, but at the same time, he was ridiculously curious. He wanted to know what security camera Jay was talking about.

            He decided to make a folder for Jay just as a record, so he stood up and walked over to his box of patient folders. He pulled it down from the shelf and placed it onto his desk, and as he reached to grab a fresh folder from the front, he saw the letter “H” and hesitated. For no other reason than to comfort himself, he reached to the back of the “H” section, looking for Ansel’s patient information folder. He knew it was last, since “Hunnisett” came last in that section alphabetically when grouped with his other patients. However, the folder he pulled up belonged to a woman with the surname “Howland”. Figuring he had merely misplaced the folder he was looking for, Darcy sifted through the “H”s, but failed to find Ansel’s folder, so he looked at every folder in the box. Ansel’s was missing.

            “What the hell…?” Darcy murmured to himself. He liked to be organized. He would never have left the folder out of the box. Scratching his head, he went around behind his desk and started looking through the drawers. “Where is it?” Then, it dawned on him.

            Jay had said he’d looked around his office. He must have taken the folder.

            With a frustrated huff, Darcy walked to his door. There was a corded phone on the wall that he could use, and pressing “0” would connect him to the front desk, so he did that.

            “Yeppers,” answered Ryan.

            “Hey.” Darcy sardonically sung. “Could you do an all-call for James Thorne to return to my office? Thanks.”

* * *

 

            The Valium left Ansel feeling dizzy and disoriented, but he dared not mention this to Dr. Park, who was taking another long look at the corpse of Mr. Adair. Instead, he put his sweater back on, then slipped his coat over it. Moving made him feel woozy. “When can we go?” He slurred.

            “Whenever you feel up to walking.” Dr. Park responded as she finally closed the shelf that the corpse was on.

            “Eh, I think I’ll sit here a minute longer.” Waiting to regain his strength but not sure if he would, Ansel leaned back in the chair, resting the back of his head against the wall. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, but he only opened his eyes when he heard a gurney being pushed into the room.

            “Dr. Park,” greeted an old man who had entered with two nurses. Ansel looked at the gurney. There was a body on it, covered by a sheet, but dangling over the top edge was long, dark brown hair.

            “Dr. Raimondi,” replied Dr. Park, who sounded a bit embarrassed.

            Raimondi glanced at Ansel, then back at the woman. “Why are you here with a patient?”

            “Long story,” Ansel mumbled.

            “Valium?” The old man, supposedly the coroner, asked, gesturing at Ansel. Dr. Park nodded. The man shook his head in what could’ve been disappointment, then turned back to the gurney. “Please leave. I have an autopsy to conduct.”

            “Who’s under the cloth?” Ansel inquired in a drawl.

            As if seeing no point in keeping the truth from him, Dr. Raimondi solemnly answered, “Ms. Isabelle Montgomery. She was here on a trip. Apparently said that she got a call from her son, asking her to drop by.”

            Dr. Park’s face drooped with what looked like shock. Ansel didn’t understand why until she spoke, saying, “Isabelle Montgomery? She… She wasn’t married to a man who died just recently, was she?”

            “Yes, I’m afraid this is _that_ Isabelle.”

            “I don’t get it.” Ansel groaned. “Who is she?”

            Dr. Park looked at him, her face pale and gaunt. “She’s Dr. Adair’s mother…”

* * *

 

            “James Thorne, return to Dr. Adair’s office. That’s James Thorne to Dr. Adair’s office.” Ryan announced over the public announcement system. Darcy huffed as he took the paper Jay had written on from its clipboard and slipped it into a new folder. He doubted that Jay was even still in the building, but it was worth a shot. If worst came to worst, he could just get the guy’s cellphone number from Ansel somehow. He closed the folder in his hand, then set it down against his desk and pulled a Sharpie from a tube-shaped container. Using the pen, he wrote “THORNE, James” along the space allotted for the folder’s name, and then he slipped the folder into the “T” section of his box.

            He was surprised when he heard the knocking on his door. Perhaps he had misjudged, and Jay had returned to fess up. He thought that up until he heard the voice behind the door.

            “Darcy.” It was Ansel, and he sounded firm despite the slightly tipsy slur he’d developed, the latter of which was probably a side effect of the Valium.

            Darcy opened the door for his friend, finding him to be standing in front of the door with his arms firmly pressed against the walls to his sides, as if he was trying to seem somewhat intimidating. “Are you alright?” The doctor asked, genuinely concerned. Slurring was a serious side effect that he had to find a way to counteract, and Ansel seemed a bit ill… as well as furious, for that matter.

            “Did you see a guy named James Thorne?” The younger man demanded to know.

            Darcy straightened himself. “Yeah, I saw Jay.” He admit. Ansel threw his head back in annoyance, then let out a groan that was half growl. As he did, Darcy reached out, wrapping his arm around Ansel. “Come on, get in here and sit down before you fall on your face.”

            “I have bad news.” Ansel revealed.

            “It can wait.”

            After sitting Ansel down on one of the chairs in front of his desk, Darcy thought aloud: “Okay, five hundred milligrams of caffeine cancels out twenty milligrams of diazepam, so fifty milligrams of caffeine…”

            “What are you mumbling?”

            “Sit tight, Poppet. I’m going to get something to perk you up.” The doctor pat Ansel’s knee before getting up.

            “ _Poppet?_ ” Ansel sneered jokingly at the old-fashioned pet name, “Piss off.”

            “You know you like it.” Darcy quipped back, then he left Ansel alone in his office. He walked further down the hall, planning to head to the cafeteria to buy Ansel a cup of coffee, but then he noticed a soda machine and remembered how much his friend despised coffee. For a moment, he stared at his options, then he looked over his shoulder for someone to ask for advice. He saw a nurse walking by that wasn’t Ryan, so he raised his voice. “Excuse me,” he asked, “Which of these has the most caffeine?”

            The nurse glanced at the options. “Definitely Mountain Dew.”

            “How much per can?”

            “I’m not sure. Something like fifty to sixty milligrams?”

            That would do.

            “Thanks.” He said and pulled his wallet from the pocket of his coat. Luckily, he had enough change, and when the machine rolled out a green can, he picked it up and returned to his office. Ansel was still sitting in the chair he had been left in, but Darcy knew he’d stood up, since the chair had been turned to face the door, and the moment he walked in, his friend held up the folder he’d made for Jay with a hard expression on his face.

            “Really?” He flatly questioned the doctor. “He’s formally a patient of yours now?”

            “Yes.” Darcy answered as he closed the door. “He’s a patient of mine, just as you were.”

            “Oh, _joy_. One more thing I have in common with this sick son of a bitch.” Ansel seethed, slapping the folder down on Darcy’s desk. “What’s the CD?”

            “He gave it to me.”

            “Throw it out.”

            “I don’t want to. I’m curious.” Darcy protested softly.

            “Curiosity killed the cat, Darc.”

            Darcy ignored him, kneeling down in front of him and popping open the can before extending it toward him. “Here.”

            Ansel seemed amused, as he raised a brow and smirked. “You’re giving me a Mountain Dew? Very professional, Dr. Adair.”

            “Maybe not professional,” Darcy admit, “but friendly. I supposed you’d rather not have another needle stuck into your arm.”

            “Fair enough.” Ansel took the can without further argument and took a swig.

            Darcy sat down behind his desk again, and as he did, he loosened the scarf that had been around his neck since he’d left the apartment. “You said you had bad news for me?” He inquired.

            “Yeah,” Ansel fretted, carefully managing to turn his chair back toward Darcy’s desk, “but I’m still trying to figure out how to tell you.”

            “Tell me what?”

            The young man took a deep breath. The serious look on his face made Darcy’s friendly smile fade.

            “What happened?”

            “Darcy… Your mother, she’s… She’s gone, Peanut.”

            Darcy didn’t understand. “Yeah. No. What?”

            “The morgue… She’s there.”

            The doctor paused for a beat, then inquired, “My mother’s dead?”

            Ansel only managed to nod. He watched Darcy lower his head, and both of them were silent for a long moment. “Darcy,” He keened sympathetically after about thirty seconds of silence, “I’m so sorry.”

            “How did she go?”

            “You won’t believe it. It’s the damnedest thing.”

            “Tell me.” Darcy gave Ansel a firm, though unaggressive, look. He watched his friend breathe slowly before he spoke.

            “She hung herself, too.”

            “Why was she here?” The doctor requested, not missing a beat. “She lives in another state. Why did she come here?”

            “You don’t seem that upset.” Ansel remarked, surprised at Darcy’s cool composition.

            “Oh, I’m upset. I’m very upset. Devastated, even. But all I care about right now is answers.”

            Shrugging it off, assuming that Darcy was just closer with his father, Ansel decided to answer with what he’d heard. “The coroner said that she came here as a trip,” he made eye contact with his friend before continuing, “because her son called her.”

            Darcy furrowed his brows. “I never called her. I don’t even know her number.”

            Ansel shrugged. “I dunno either, man. I’m as confused as you are.”

            The older man exhaled loudly and ran his hands through his hair. “There’s got to be a connection. Something’s going on here.” He glanced down and picked up the CD, looking at its case once more. “Do you think this has answers?”

            “Nope. Not at all.” Ansel denied.

            “Well, thanks for being honest, at least.”

            “You’re still going to see what’s on it, aren’t you?”

            “Yep.”

            “Shit.”

* * *

 

            It was five past ten when Darcy and Ansel stepped back into their apartment together.

            “Look, I just don’t think this CD is worth your time.” Ansel told his best friend as he immediately headed to the fridge.

            “I need to know, Ansel.” Darcy insisted. “It’ll bug me all day if I don’t.”

            “Oh, God forbid.” The slightly-shorter man grumbled bitterly, pulling out a carton of milk and silently cursing when he discovered it to have been put back empty—probably by himself. “Look, you do whatever you wanna do with that CD. I don’t care. Okay, well, I do care. But I’m leaving in ten minutes.”

            “What? Why?”

            Ansel tossed the carton into the trash can. “That work I need to do needs to be finished by December.”

            “That’s Thursday.”

            “Exactly.” He asserted. “I don’t have a day to spare.”

            Darcy laughed, but only a little. “I swear, you’re going to work yourself to death one of these days.”

            “Probably.” Ansel chortled.

            There was a computer in the bedroom that neither of them really used, since it was a hand-me-down from Darcy’s father and it ran like shit. However, since he didn’t know exactly what was on the CD, Darcy figured it was his best bet, so he turned it on. It took a few minutes to finally start up, but when it did, the doctor opened the disk drive. He popped the CD from its case, looking at it one last time before placing it into the tray and closing the drive.

            The CD contained a single large MOV format video file. Its filename was the date of Thanksgiving night, which made Darcy even more curious. With almost no hesitation, he double-clicked the file, and after a few seconds, it started to play.

            It was security camera footage, alright. Silent black and white security camera footage of his father’s kitchen.

            “What…?” Darcy breathed. He didn’t recall his dad ever installing security cameras in his home. Had they been installed after he moved out?

            Skipping through the video, which spanned the entire day, Darcy watched his father cooking, then saw his own entrance into the dining room at 7:12 PM. He was seized by emotion as he saw himself and his father disappear to the table, which was out of eyeshot for the camera, but he forced himself to continue. He kept jumping along, seeing himself leave. Then, he watched his father start washing the dishes, right under the camera. His lips were quivering, and he was blinking back tears, as he wished that everything could go back to normal. He wished that his father’s death wasn’t true.

            At 9:00 PM on the dot, Darcy saw someone step slowly into the dining room. He moved his face a bit closer to the screen, trying to figure out what he was seeing. Ansel had been wrong: the CD really did have answers, it seemed. However, it wasn’t until the mystery person stepped into the kitchen that Darcy made a terrifying discovery.

            It was him.

            What he was seeing was impossible. He distinctly recalled returning home to find Ansel asleep on the couch at 8:30. Yet, there he was on the tape, sneaking up to his father. Once behind him, he just stood there as he washed dishes. This went on for about two minutes, and Darcy watched the entire thing in tense horror.

            It was 9:04 when Darcy clamped his hand down onto his father’s left shoulder. His dad screamed at the grip that had been strong enough to leave a bruise, and though the recording was silent, Darcy could hear the cry in his head as if he’d been right there when it happened.

            “No,” Darcy gasped as he watched himself grab his dad in a headlock. “No!”

            With a twist of his head in his son’s arms, Mr. Adair stopped struggling due to sudden death via spinal shock, and his arms fell limply at his sides. Darcy watched himself stand there for a few seconds before finally letting go of his father, allowing him to crumple to the floor at his feet, and then he belted out a loud howl of grief and terror.


	6. Chapter 6

            Ansel stood beside the counter, staring off into space. He was worried. Worried that Jay had something big under his sleeve. He’d known the man for a long time, but had never considered him a real threat until earlier that morning. Until then, he’d been a creep, but nothing to necessarily fear. Who knew what was on that CD? Maybe it had something to do with him. He had tried to get Darcy to back down, but it had become quickly apparent that the doctor was done laying low. Something in Ansel’s gut told him that Jay’s involvement was either a red herring or just plain bad news.

            However, when he glanced at the digital clock above the television and saw that it was almost 10:20, he tried to shake his worries out of his head. Surely, he was just paranoid. Jay couldn’t do anything to him, and he’d be damned before he let him do anything to Darcy. At least, that was what he thought, up until the moment that he heard what almost sounded like the wail of a banshee coming from the bedroom.

            “Darcy?!” Ansel cried. He practically slammed himself through the bedroom door, only to find his best friend staring at the computer screen with his hands clamped over his mouth in horror. Saying nothing and deciding to see what had frightened Darcy so terribly for himself, Ansel stepped closer, looking over his shoulder at the screen.

            It was security camera footage. Ansel could see Darcy, standing in the middle of a kitchen with a corpse at his feet. The corpse was Mr. Adair.

            Ansel glanced at his friend, who just kept staring, quivering like a dying leaf. “Darcy,” he began with an uneasy voice, “what is this?”

            “I killed him,” Darcy stammered.

            “Was this on the CD?”

            Dr. Adair nodded. So, Ansel opened the drive, causing the player to close. “Ansel, what—” Before he could get any more words than this out of his mouth, he watched Ansel pick up the disk, holding it up for him to see. Then, he whipped it down to the floor, and it snapped in half, causing Darcy to flinch before looking back up at his friend.

            “I told you not to check it.” The younger man grumbled with a voice that trembled with emotion.

            “Did you know about this?” Darcy accused.

            “I knew this damn disk was bad news, yeah! Didn’t think it would be _this_ bad, though!”

            “Ansel, I just watched myself break my father’s neck!” The doctor shouted, growing increasingly furious.

            The man pointed his finger right in Darcy’s face. “No.” He snapped. “That doesn’t make any sense, and you know it. The timestamp there said 9:05 PM. You wouldn’t have made it home until 9:50 at _least!_ ”

            “I still could’ve done it!” Darcy argued.

            “I _woke up_ at 9:5 _2_.” Ansel stated. “You were _asleep._ ”

            “Ansel,” Darcy wept, “I _saw_ it! I just saw what I did to my father, on camera! How could that be faked…?!”

            “I don’t know, goddammit!!” Ansel roared, whipping himself around and stomping to the far wall. “I don’t know, but it _was!!_ ”

            “But what if it wasn’t?”

            Ansel turned his head to look over his shoulder, but he didn’t know what to say. He just stood there, breathing heavily. He knew the recording couldn’t be true. There was just no way that Darcy could have ever done such a thing. If it had been himself on the recording, then Ansel would have been worried, but with circumstances the way they were, all the insomniac was concerned with was that Darcy now had it in his head that _he_ was the culprit. He had to wonder how the hell Jay had managed to make such a convincing recording; it looked just like Darcy was in that video. It couldn’t have been anyone else, but there was no way in a thousand years that it ever could have been him.

            “Ansel, I’m a murderer…” The doctor choked through his tears. “I killed my own father…!”

            “I heard you, you know.”

            “What…?”

            Ansel shook his head slowly. “I laid down to rest my eyes at half past eight.” He admit quietly. “You didn’t come in more than a minute after I laid down. I… I wanted you to think that I had been asleep the whole time, so that…” He chuckled somberly. “I don’t know why. So that you’d think I’d been able to get any sleep? Truth is, Jay left a message that night. I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to.” He turned, looking down at his friend, who stared at him in silence. He shrugged his shoulders with a tight-lipped smile. “You did your little nighttime ritual, then you went to sleep. I just sat on the couch. Kept pretending to be asleep whenever you were in the room. Then, you went to sleep. At 9:50, you were in such a deep sleep that I probably could’ve blown an air horn at you without disturbing you.”

            “How do you know that?” Darcy sniffled.

            Ansel didn’t move, though he did avert his eyes down to the floor. He was nervous about admitting to a strange habit of his, especially at such a sensitive time, but it was either his confession or Darcy’s emotional trauma. He exhaled slowly out of his nose, then inhaled. “I… watch you, sometimes. When you’re asleep.” He quietly revealed. “It calms me down, y’know? Just… making sure that you’re safe. Comfortable. It sounds creepy, but I swear it’s not, it just… It soothes me whenever the panic attacks get too bad.”

            Darcy shook his head numbly, still trying to process what he was hearing. It was very surreal to see Ansel so honest and vulnerable. “But you haven’t had panic attacks for a month since today.”

            “Not in front of you.”

            It was Darcy’s turn to look down at the floor. The air was tense with silence for too long, since neither of them knew what to say. He wasn’t sure how to respond to Ansel’s confession. On one hand, he was extremely touched to discover that Ansel cared that much about him. On the other, he was right: it was a bit creepy. However, overall, he didn’t feel any fear or concern about Ansel’s actions. He felt needed, and it was a feeling that washed relief over him.

            “I know it wasn’t you, Darcy.” Ansel concluded. “You’re the kindest man I’ve ever met, and even if you weren’t such a big softie, you were asleep when…” He trailed off, realizing it might be insensitive to just flat out say the words “your father was killed”, even if that was the point Darcy had been trying to make.

            Darcy laughed through a sob. He was relieved, but not entirely convinced. If it wasn’t him, then how was he on the recording?

            “Jay must have faked it.” Ansel affirmed his thoughts. “I don’t know how, but that’s the only logical…” He trailed off again and his face paled, causing Darcy to look up at him, confused. “… con—… —clusion.”

            “Ansel?”

            “Nah, it’s nothing,” he nervously muttered. It had occurred to him that Jay could have somehow dressed like Darcy, but that didn’t accommodate for the steep difference in height, and while Jay was possessive and overall very creepy, Ansel didn’t think that he was a killer. At least, he hoped that he wasn’t.

            “You sure?” Asked Darcy.

            “Yeah. Listen, you should get some rest, Darc. You’ve been through a lot.”

            The doctor disagreed. “Ansel, I was cooped up in here for three days straight.”

            “Well, yeah, but that was just your father. Now, your mother…”

            Darcy thought for a moment. “Wait.”

            “What?”

            “She hung herself? The same way dad did?”

            Ansel shrugged. “I didn’t stick around to hear too much, but yeah, apparently.”

            “Did she have that bruise on her shoulder?”

            The younger man averted his eyes.

            “Ansel?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Darcy questioned, standing up from the chair.

            “I didn’t want to scare you, alright?”

            “Scare me? If anything, that’s a relief.”

            Ansel raised a brow. “How so?”

            Darcy managed a small smile. “Think about it. That means that someone else killed my father, because I wasn’t there to do that to my mother. Someone else is behind this!”

            “I still think it’s concerning that someone killed your parents.”

            The doctor’s smile turned to a flat frown. “Huh. Yeah, you’re right. I actually hadn’t thought about that.”

            Ansel said nothing, just smirking as he watched the gears in Darcy’s head turn.

            “Well.” The doctor mumbled. “Shit.”

* * *

 

            Looking in the bathroom mirror, Darcy examined his split lip. There was a bit of blood around it, and it seemed to have been split pretty badly, but it was healing, slowly but surely. He thought about washing the blood off, but realized that he may have to rub it off, and that if he did so, he might open the wound again, so he decided against it. The grey t-shirt he wore had a bloodstain on it from when he pressed it against his lip, but it didn’t concern him very much. He had gradually come to admire Ansel’s comment from when they first met, that stains built character, since he was right; the paint stains on Ansel’s pants that were by now also on the bottom of his hoodie revealed that he was the kind of guy who did a job no matter the cost; that he didn’t care about getting his hands dirty so long as he did what was asked of him. The bloodstain that was now on his own t-shirt, however, Darcy was unsure what exactly that said about him.

            “Maybe that I’m clumsy,” he thought in jest, though he felt it was a reasonable conclusion to come to.

            Gazing at his reflection, Darcy’s mood dipped, and he let out a weary sigh. As much as he wanted to pretend that everything was alright, there was no denying that he was probably in some pretty deep shit. Someone had murdered his father, then made a point of killing his mother just that morning. She had said she’d been called to come in by him, but he knew that was impossible; his cellphone had died on Saturday, and he’d only just plugged it in to charge a few hours ago. Even if it hadn’t, he didn’t actually know how to get in contact with his mother. His father kept saying she loved him, but neither of them had seen each other or even spoken since he was very little. She had cut them out of her life, whether his father chose to see it that way or not.

            There were too many questions. If she hadn’t received a call from him, why had she come in? Who actually called her? Would she have even answered if Darcy found a way to contact her? The only thing that made sense was that she had made an excuse. Perhaps she had heard about her ex-husband’s supposed suicide. Maybe she _did_ care.

            He had more than enough reason to mope, but he found himself thinking about Ansel instead. The few times he saw Ansel over the weekend that he spent doing pretty much nothing other than crying, the younger man had been beside himself with worry, though he always tried to hide it behind concerned smiles and a gentle, patient voice. He’d taken care of him all through his misery, but had also given him space, and suddenly Darcy felt bad. Ansel had his own problems to deal with, but he’d still looked after him with no hesitation. There wasn’t any way he could go back to moping. It would be selfish of him to put that burden onto his friend’s shoulders again.

            It was then that Darcy had a frightening thought: someone was targeting him. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that his parents were killed in the same way. Someone wanted him to suffer. They had taken two people he loved, and really, that only left one more: Ansel. He felt his blood run cold as he vacantly stared at his own eyes in his reflection. What if Ansel was next? There had been a delay between the murders of his mother and father, but that was probably only because she lived out of state. Ansel lived in _the same apartment_ as him. It would be the equivalent of saving the easiest task for last if the killer was working the way that Darcy thought they were.

            The thought scared Darcy so badly that he practically threw himself out of the bathroom, but Ansel wasn’t there.

            “Ansel?” He called out. “Ansel!”

            It took him a minute to remember that Ansel had said that he still wanted to go do his odd job. Where that was, exactly, and who he was doing it for, both were foggy to Darcy. He tried to wrack his brain, remembering that his friend had mentioned one or the other before. But what if it was a different job?

            He had no idea where Ansel was, and that terrified him. Then, the phone started to ring.

* * *

 

            Ansel huffed as he put down the huge buckets of green and black paint he’d lugged up three flights of stairs. He was working on the set for a Christmas musical, since the original set designer had basically called in ill for the entire month of December. There were the outlines of trees along the walls that were blue and white, for the sky and the snow. Ansel’s job was to paint the trees, including their pines and decorations, optimally before December 1st. Of course, Ansel had done painting before, quite often, but he was more of an abstract/zentangle type of artist. He could draw people too (though not as well as he wanted), but landscapes were a mystery to him. Even if he didn’t have the faintest idea how to paint a tree realistically, the goal would be impossible anyway: it would probably take him until the 1st to paint the pines alone.

            Now, why the theater they were doing the production in had to be in the middle of the third floor of the building behind a set of locked doors—which, across the room, had twins, though the other set of doors couldn’t be opened at all except from the inside since they lacked pull handles—was beyond Ansel. It was particularly frustrating, since the elevators required keys that Ansel didn’t have… Well, he didn’t have _any_ of the building’s keys, since he wasn’t an employee per se, but that was beside the point. Meaning that he usually had to check in with the production’s director to get the keys to the theater (really, it was more of a conference room with a hollow wooden stage that Ansel kept worrying he may somehow fall through), but for some reason, the door was open when he tried it this time. He wasn’t about to complain: the janitor’s failure to do his job meant less walking for him.

            It was a tad warmer than usual in the room, so Ansel slipped off his coat, laying it on a table in front of the other doors that only he could open. However, he left on Darcy’s scarf, which he had taken with him since he preferred walking to his destinations. After removing his coat, he took his phone out from his sweater pocket almost impulsively, then scoffed. He had wanted to spontaneously text Darcy a random movie quote he’d just thought of, a thing he usually did, but remembered that he couldn’t get cell service in this building, at least not in the conference room-turned-theater. So, he put his phone back into his pocket and turned, walking back across the stage to the left-most tree.

            “Who the hell needs this many goddamn Christmas trees?” He grumbled to himself as he counted four trees on the walls, two of which were beside each other between the two arches to backstage on either side. He had never been expressly told _not_ go to backstage, but he figured it would be in his best interest to stay in eyeshot of anyone looking through the windows on the doors, if only just so that the janitor wouldn’t assume the room was empty and turn off the lights.

            He pushed up his sleeves, then opened the paint buckets and pulled out the small pail he’d brought up with them. It was difficult as hell to pour the green paint, which was a full three liters, into the pail without knocking over the pail or spilling the paint onto the floor (this, he _had_ been expressly told not to do), but he managed by using the edge of the makeshift stage as a table. Then, he got the black paint, which was half empty, and it was easier to pour in. He used the thick brush he’d been given to roughly mix the colors, coming up with a dark green that looked like it belonged on a pine tree, so he sighed and stood up from the edge of the stage, which he had been sitting on while mixing the paint, and walked over to the Christmas tree. After running the sides of the brush against the edge of the pail (it could have been a yogurt container for all Ansel knew), he dipped the brush into the paint and spun it to catch any excess paint from dripping off, then put the brush against the wall. Despite all of his efforts, the paint abruptly dripped off of the brush, and he looked down to see two or three tiny dollops of paint on the floor.

            “Eh,” he grunted, “fuck it.”

            Undeterred, he continued painting, no longer caring whether or not the paint dripped onto the wooden floor. The director knew him, and knew that he was the kind of guy who usually left a mess behind if he was determined to get a job done on a time crunch. Hell, he even left messes behind when he had all of the time in the world. He merely figured that no one would notice, and even if they did, it wasn’t like anyone watching the production ever would; most of them probably wouldn’t even be able to see the floor of the stage from the height.

            He was only finished the first layer of paint for the top three bristles of pines when there was knocking on the glass portion of the doors to his left. He had been told that he would be unbothered until mid-afternoon, so he curiously took a step back to look at who was knocking, but there wasn’t anybody there. He paused there for a moment, waiting to see if anyone would poke their head in, but no one did.

            “Huh.”

            Shaking it off, he stepped back to the wall. He was just about to put the brush back up against it when someone knocked again, and he whipped his head around. After a second, he stepped backward again. No one. Immediately, he figured that someone was screwing with him, but that conclusion didn’t make sense. The only kids that should have been there were the actors and singers in the musical, but they weren’t supposed to be around until that afternoon, and it didn’t make sense for a grown adult to be pulling such an immature prank on him. The door was unlocked, but Ansel wasn’t sure that anyone else knew that.

            “If they want in,” he thought to himself, “they’ll try to open the door.” However, the second he stepped forward and put the window out of his line of sight again, there was more knocking, so he stepped back into clear sight and put down the pail of paint, laying the brush across it before he marched over to the double doors.

            Even glancing out through the windows yielded no results. He couldn’t hear anyone walking down the hall, or even running, so he opened one of the doors and stepped out into the hall, looking left, then right. There wasn’t anyone there. When he turned around, confused, he noticed that the door was still open, so he looked down. The kick-down door stop was still up, but for some reason, the door wasn’t closing. He then looked up at the door closer, which wasn’t moving. With his jaw hanging agape, Ansel tilted his head. It was very strange. He didn’t understand what was going on. Still puzzled, he slowly stepped back into the conference room, only to jump when the door closed behind him. Again, he turned. He shoved the door open, then watched as it slowly drifted shut on its own.

            Silently, the young man mouthed, “What the fuck…?”

            If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve said that something was going on. Though he couldn’t explain who was knocking, or why the door had stayed open, he decided to sluggishly shake his head clear of his uncertainty. He had a job to do, and he wasn’t about to let some weird door malfunction distract him. He was then so focused on continuing to paint that he failed to notice that, at some point during his fascination with the door, the backstage light had been turned off.


	7. Chapter 7

            It took until around 11:20 for Darcy to finally figure out where Ansel had gone. He had been the unintended recipient of a call from the younger man’s employer, who was anxious that he wasn’t coming, and, knowing Ansel, was concerned about that. The employer, a musical/acting director, hadn’t heard from Ansel yet, but Darcy decided to take his chances anyway. As he was running out of the apartment, he grabbed his coat, but failed to find his scarf. He searched for it for a moment before violently giving up.

            “Fuck it!” He shouted to himself, exasperated, then rushed to the parking lot. He had the same bad feeling in his chest that he’d had that morning, and that time, his mother had been found dead shortly after. It could have just been a coincidence, but the doctor wasn’t about to take any chances, especially not when Ansel’s wellbeing was on the line. When he jumped into his car, he turned the key in the ignition. He forgot to fasten his seatbelt until he was at a red light two minutes away.

            What would have been a twenty minute walk was only a ten minute drive at most, and when he parked, he leapt out of his car and dashed into the building in front of him. The building in question was some sort of office/warehouse combo, but it had a conference room on the top floor that was doubling as a theater, being rented out by a director and a choir of young actors for a Christmas show. Ansel was working for the director, so Darcy could only assume that meant he was upstairs. However, exactly _where_ upstairs wasn’t as clear to the doctor, so once he made it up to the third floor, he started to speed-walk down the many branching hallways.

            He was walking in big squares around the outer hallways, planning to work his way to the center, when he passed by a set of double doors. He didn’t process that he’d seen what could have been Ansel’s hoodie in his peripheral vision until he had already walked at least half a foot past it, and when he did, he whipped around and returned to the black twin doors.

            Through the small rectangular windows, Darcy could see Ansel standing on a wooden stage. He stood upon a large wooden box, using it as a stepping stool to touch up a pine tree he was painting on the set. The young man was tilted somewhat, half facing the window Darcy was gazing at him from, but he had his full attention on the wall of the set. As he watched, the doctor noticed his dark blue scarf was in fact around his best friend’s neck.

            Besides being relieved to discover that Ansel was alright, he couldn’t deny that he was oddly entranced, and he found himself stepping a bit closer to the glass, trying to see Ansel better. The insomniac rarely looked so focused. He seemed content with the work he was doing. Seeing the gentle way he ran his brush against the wall, combined with the pure purpose he wore on his face, awoke some unspoken feeling in Darcy as he realized how much he enjoyed the sight before him; Ansel had something to do, something that he appeared to enjoy. He had known Ansel to be many things, but for some reason “artist” had never been a title that had occurred to him until that moment. The doctor did not speak or move. Instead, he found himself just watching his friend paint. It put him at such ease to see Ansel so at peace.

            The young man pulled back from the wall when he’d finished with the top pines’ touch-ups, and Darcy watched him sigh before pinching the top of the scarf with the clean fingers of his paint-covered left hand, bringing it up over his mouth and seeming to take a delicate smell of it. Then, apparently fueled with a new sense of purpose, he raised the brush again. Darcy wasn’t entirely sure how seeing Ansel use his scent as means to keep himself focused made him feel, but it was a passionate feeling, whatever it was.

            However, the man just stared at the wall for a long moment. He huffed once more before his shoulders drooped, then he turned away from the wall altogether and stepped down from the box. Darcy twitched when his friend looked up, catching full sight of his face in the window, but the insomniac’s mildly surprised expression dropped into a solemn-yet-casual gaze upon recognizing who was watching him. Blindly, Darcy reached for a handle to pull open the door, but when he realized that he was grabbing at air, he looked down—there were no handles on the door. He could not open it. So, he looked back up at Ansel, who, noticing the doctor’s confusion, slowly but bluntly tilted his head back, gesturing at another set of doors across the room. Darcy didn’t understand. Ansel realized that after a moment, then proceeded to point at the doors.

            “Go around,” he seemed to mouth.

            For a second, the doctor looked to his left and right and tried to figure out which way around would be shorter, but he quickly realized it didn’t matter, so he jogged to the left, turned two corners, and stopped in front of the other two doors. He ripped the right door open before quickly stepping inside. Ansel stood upon the stage, his hands clasped as he paced slowly toward him—to the edge of the stage before stopping.

            “Hey.” The weary young man spoke in a low voice.

            “Hey,” Darcy breathed back as he stepped closer, walking around to the center of the stage. Noticing that he was looking at the trees, Ansel glanced back at them and let out a small laugh.

            “Yeah, they’re not very good.” He admit to his opinion. “I mean, I’m no landscape artist.”

            “I like them.” Darcy told him regardless.

            “Thanks, I guess.”

            Darcy stepped up onto the stage, and the two of them slowly and silently paced in circles around each other. Ansel played vacantly with his sleeves, an unconscious action that Darcy had witnessed him do whenever he was in an awkward situation, and Darcy himself just kept his hands in the pockets of his coat, though he could feel his thumbs rubbing between different fingers randomly: his own quirk when nervous. Something odd was lingering in the air between the duo—Ansel seemed upset about something, and Darcy felt strangely passionate, though more in a negative sense.

            “So,” Ansel finally tried to break the ice, “what brings you here?”

            “Your boss called.” Darcy answered in a flat voice, not looking at Ansel as they continued to pace. “She was worried. So was I.”

            “Whoops.” Ansel reached down to the table his coat was on, picking it up before pacing back to stage right.

            “I mean, I find out that someone’s killing everyone I love, and then my best friend runs off on his own, so really, I’m not sure _how_ you expected me to react.”

            “You knew where I was going.” Ansel muttered as he disappeared backstage through one of the arches on the set. Darcy stared at the walls, following Ansel’s approximate location with his eyes by listening to the young man’s boots against the hollow wood they stood upon.

            “I would be at home panicking if your boss hadn’t called.” Darcy argued, trying to hide the frustration he was beginning to feel rising in his chest.

            “Why? It’s not like I’d be a big target or anything.” Ansel stepped out through the arch to Darcy’s right—stage left—lowering his hood down onto the back of his coat, which he now wore. “I’m sure you’ve got extended family you should be more concerned about.”

            “You son of a bitch.”

            Ansel finally looked at Darcy, surprised by the sheer degree of biting emotion in the doctor’s quivering voice. He didn’t move when his older friend took a step closer, his lips trembling as he pointed his finger at Ansel.

            “You don’t think you’re family to me?” He snapped, his eyes beginning to well up against his will. “You don’t think that you mean the _goddamn world_ to me? I don’t think I’ve cared for _anyone_ as much as I care about you. Hell, I loved my own _mother_ less than I love you!”

            Ansel, admittedly, was stunned, but Darcy failed to notice the shock on his face since it was a subtle change, and he was too overcome with emotion to pay attention to detail.

            “If anything ever happened to you—anything that I knew _I_ could have prevented— _anything_ that I knew was _my_ fault—I would… I’d…” The doctor lowered and shook his head, his messy hair following along somewhat delayed. “It would kill me.” He cried quietly, allowing a tear to roll down either cheek. “You mean so much to me. I don’t want to lose you too.”

            The insomniac tried to find something to say, but he was speechless. He briefly raised his hand, considering stepping closer and placing it onto his friend’s gently trembling shoulders, but he closed his fingers into a loose fist and lowered it instead. “Darcy…” He finally mumbled, apologetically. “I… don’t know what to say.”

            “Just say you’ll stay by me.” Darcy begged. “That you won’t do anything stupid or reckless like running off on your own again, at least not until we know the killer has been stopped.”

            Ansel sighed quietly. “It’s just… No one’s ever said anything like that to me before.”

            “Like what?” Darcy slightly lifted his head.

            “That they love me more than their own mother.” He answered with a small, touched smile on his lips.

            Darcy’s face flushed with what could have been embarrassment, but he said nothing, instead turning his eyes back down to the floor in silence. Ansel did the same, and though he wanted to return the sentiment, he found himself too nervous to do so, since he wasn’t so sentimental by nature. He expressed his love through witty banter and occasional indirect gestures of kindness, not by direct words and passionate emotions. So, instead, he opted to use the latter of his own options: a kind gesture of obedience.

            “I’ll stay by you, Peanut. I won’t move unless you say so… But what am I supposed to tell the director?”

* * *

 

            Downstairs in one of the backrooms used by janitors, Darcy sat on a stool closer to the door, watching as Ansel, hunched over the deep metal sink, scrubbed his paintbrush clean with his own fingers under the running tap. They remained this way in silence for a while, since Ansel was almost abnormally distant, and Darcy was too busy watching Ansel.

            He was still embarrassed about confessing to just how much he cared for the other man, but it felt good to have it off of his chest. All he could hope was that his confession would at least be taken as an indication that Ansel’s selflessness was greatly appreciated, as it was, and he had yet to find an appropriate time to properly thank the younger man. “So,” he finally spoke, after clearing his throat, “Were you alright on the way here?”

            Offhandedly, Ansel responded, “If you’re asking whether or not I felt like anyone was watching me on the walk here, the answer is no.”

            “You seem shaken, is all.”

            Ansel shook his head, but didn’t say anything immediately.

            “Ansel?”

            “I was hearing things.”

            Darcy quickly sat upright, intrigued and slightly alarmed, but Ansel just kept casually washing the brush. “Like what?”

            “Knocking on the windows, like someone wanted in.” Ansel chuckled lowly. “I thought it was Jay at first, but every time I looked, no one was there. Jay’s not quick enough nor light enough on his feet to get away that fast. But, you know, I haven’t slept in three days, so there’s that.”

            Darcy’s heart raced. His father’s final warning to him echoed in his head. “Did you open the door?”

            “Of course I opened the door. I had to check, didn’t I?”

            The doctor lowered his head, burying it in his right palm. “Dammit, Ansel…”

            Ansel turned to look at him. “Why, was that wrong?” He questioned.

            “I think I know what my dad meant now.” Darcy announced. “The words he whispered to me.”

            Ansel tilted his head. His best friend glanced up at him with a face contorted by what might have been grief.

            “Maybe whatever’s doing this—”

            “— _who_ ever—”

            “—is done with me. Maybe it moved along, to… to you.”

            “I don’t get it.” Ansel told him. “What are you saying?”

            “Who do you love, Ansel?”

            The doctor watched his friend’s vaguely playful expression abruptly change into one of mild, restrained fear. He didn’t say anything in response, but his face alone showed that he understood what Darcy was implying.

            “Who?” Darcy insisted. “We have to protect them.”

            Ansel blinked slowly, then his face changed again, displaying his sardonicism. Clearly, he understood, but thought that Darcy was joking. “Wait, okay, let me get this straight.” He gibed lightheartedly. “So not only do you think that the killer is after _my_ loved ones now instead of yours, but also that they’re _not human?_ ”

            “Look, I _know_ it sounds crazy—”

            “You’re damn _right_ it sounds crazy, Darc,”

            “What, so you don’t believe me?”

            “What I think, Peanut, is that you’ve been through a lot of stress.” Ansel replied. “I’ve been there, believe me, and I know what it’s like. I nearly went crazy trying to get away from Jay.”

            Darcy stood up. “Ansel, you saw that recording. That was _me_ there; it was _me_ who killed my father, and if there were any security cameras, you’d probably see that it was _me_ who killed my mother, too!”

            Ansel rolled his eyes. “Oh, not this again. Darc, I already explained why that doesn’t work.”

            “But it _was_ me!”

            “But it couldn’t have been.”

            “Exactly!”

            The younger man huffed. “So, what, you think this _thing_ is wearing your skin like some sort of doppelgänger and trying to frame you for two or more counts of first-degree murder?”

            “I don’t know _what_ it’s trying to do. But I think it’s after you. Whether it’s after _you_ personally, or just whoever you love, I don’t know, but it came to me, too.”

            “I don’t follow.”

            “It came to me as _you_ on Friday morning. I let it in. So did you, by opening the door!”

            “Darcy, you’re forgetting something.” Ansel argued. “If you’re talking about what I _think_ you’re talking about, _your dad was already dead._ ‘It’ coming to you as me had _nothing_ to do with that.”

            The doctor felt the blood drain from his face as his heart sunk to his chest. It hadn’t occurred to him up until that very moment that, perhaps, his bad feeling hadn’t been about Ansel. It could have been about someone else. “Oh God…”

            “Uh. You okay, Peanut? You’re… really pale all of the sudden.”

            “Just tell me who you love, Ansel.”

            The young man seemed to shrink under Darcy’s gaze. With a degree of shyness that didn’t become him, he slowly shook his head.

            “Ansel, someone could be dead! Tell me!”

            “You wouldn’t understand,” Ansel stammered quietly, averting his eyes from Darcy. He seemed quite uncomfortable, and possibly even frightened, which was very unusual. He buried his face down into Darcy’s scarf, his mouth sewn shut into a tight frown as he stared off at nothing with wide dark brown eyes.

            Darcy sighed, then stepped closer, placing his hands gently onto Ansel’s shoulders, causing him to glance up to meet his eyes. “Poppet,” He spoke gently, then paused, waiting for Ansel to interject with how much he hated that pet name, but no such thing happened, so he continued. “You don’t have to be nervous. What’s your dad’s name?”

            Ansel shook his head in disagreement, but said nothing.

            “Your mother?”

            Again, he shook his head.

            “You don’t love your parents?” There was yet another lack of a verbal response, so Darcy calmly insisted, “Just give me a name, please. I’ll call the hospital and ask, just to check if they’re okay.”

            “I can’t, really.” Ansel mumbled. “I can’t give you a name.”

            “Ansel, come on. You can trust me. If it’s a secret, it’ll be safe with me.”

            “Darcy, please.” The tone was vaguely demanding, but mostly desperate. “Look, there’s… really only one person I care about, and I know they’re safe.”

            “Let me make sure.” The doctor pleaded, hiding the disappointment that had arisen in his chest when he assumed that his sentiment towards Ansel didn’t seem to be reciprocated.

            “I am ninety-nine point _nine_ percent certain that they’re absolutely fine.”

            “How?”

            “Because they’re standing right in front of me.” After realizing what he’d said, Ansel quickly and shakily turned back to the sink, resuming washing the brush despite it already being clean. Darcy, on the other hand, kept standing there. He was relieved, but also, surprisingly… well, surprised. “Well? Are you going to sit back down or are you going to keep staring at me like a weirdo?” Ansel nervously joked.

            “I’m…” The doctor struggled to find words, so he decided to use Ansel’s. “I’m the only person you care about?”

            “What can I say, I, uh, am a lonely guy.”

            “What about your family? Friends?”

            “My only other friend turned out to be a nutjob.” Ansel answered. “Can we change the subject?”

            “Sure, Poppet.” Darcy breathed.

            “I fuckin’ hate that name.” Ansel groaned under his breath.

            The doctor knew he shouldn’t have been as elated as he was, especially not with his parents dead and his friend’s former friend turning out to be a little bit more than crazy, but he couldn’t help it. Almost without thinking, he stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Ansel, who tensed up at the sudden embrace.

            “Um.”

            “I love you, man.”

            “Sure. Thanks. I mean, you too. I… Err-um. Uah. Wow. I have no clue what to say.”

            “We’ll work on that.” Darcy laughed. He soon pulled away, and Ansel stood still for a few seconds more before idly resuming the task he had completed at least five minutes earlier. Darcy still wanted to call the hospital, though. “Hey, could I borrow your phone?”

            “What for?”

            “I want to call Dr. Park, just to check on her. I had a bad feeling, and I’m a bit worried.”

            “Whatever floats your boat, lover boy.” Ansel carefully pulled his phone from his pocket, handing it back to the doctor.

            However, when Darcy turned on the phone, he noticed that it had no service. “Huh. No connection.”

            “Go out in the hallway and stand by the windows. You’ll get a bar or two, probably.”

            “Thanks.” Taking his friend’s advice, Darcy walked out into the hallway. Sure enough, the closer he got to the windows, the better service he got. When he was confident with the amount of bars he had, he leaned against the windowsill and made the call. Ryan answered, so he did his best not to roll his eyes. “Hey, it’s me, Dr. Adair. Could you put me through to Dr. Park?”

            “Uhhh…” Ryan moaned awkwardly. “I thought she was with you.”

            Darcy furrowed his brows, confused. “What?”

            “Yeah, she just went to meet you. In the parking lot. Like, five minutes ago.”

            “Ryan, I’ve been with Ansel this whole time, forty minutes away.” Darcy told him. “Now stop kidding around.”

            “You called me only a few minutes ago, don’t you remember? I put you through to her. She left to go meet you.”

            Darcy began to feel a frightened flutter in his chest. “This isn’t funny anymore.” He warned. “I’ve been through a lot. Don’t joke around with me like this right now.”

            “You mean you really don’t remember?”


	8. Chapter 8

            It was noon. They were in the car, halfway to the hospital, when Ansel finally pulled out his cellphone. His hands were shaking as he unlocked the device, looking at his texts. Jay hadn’t sent him any messages since just after the phone call that morning, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his lack of texts was a bad sign, if not for Jay, then for himself and Darcy. He glanced at his friend beside him.

            Behind the wheel, Darcy only seemed half present. He impatiently tapped his left index finger against the steering wheel even as they drove down the street, and he was so concerned about his co-worker, Dr. Park, that he didn’t appear to be paying any attention to Ansel whatsoever. It was this lack of attention that made Ansel feel less nervous about being questioned as he tapped on the screen and began writing a text to Jay.

            “Jay?” He sent. After a few seconds, the text was registered as read, but ten seconds later, Jay hadn’t even made an attempt to reply, so Ansel sent another. “Answer me.” Nothing. “Please.”

            “Oh, so now you want to talk.” Jay finally responded. “Is Dr. Adair not enough anymore?”

            “Are you behind all of this?” The question made Ansel sweat as he typed it.

            “Do you think that?”

            “I sure as hell hope not, but you not even asking what I’m talking about and giving Darcy that CD certainly say otherwise.”

            “Why did you leave?”

            Ansel couldn’t help but let out a frustrated huff. “Don’t change the subject.”

            “Was it because I didn’t have as much money as that little Jew?”

            “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re texting Jay right now.” Darcy’s voice made Ansel twitch and turn his phone off impulsively.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He mumbled as he slipped his cellphone back into his pocket and sat back.

            “Ansel,” Darcy retaliated as he glanced up at the rearview mirror for no real reason, “you might not be as sentimental as I am, but you let your anger out easier than I do. You don’t have a poker face when it comes to frustration. The only times I see you looking at your phone with such hatred in your eyes is either when you’re getting texts from Jay, or you’re reading about domestic abuse.” The doctor turned his eyes off of the mirror, looked back at the road, then muttered under his breath, “Still don’t know why you read articles on that subject. They always make you so passionate with rage.”

            “Some things are better left unexplained.” Ansel answered quietly.

            “You also read about child abuse, don’t you?” At that point, it started to become clear that Darcy was merely making vacant small talk just to keep Ansel from texting Jay. Whether he was actually paying attention to anything that was being said, by Ansel or by himself, was unclear.

            “Ugh, yeah.” Ansel grumbled. “They’re all monsters. I could never imagine treating my own kids the way some of those pricks do.”

            “Do you want kids?”

            Ansel glanced at the doctor. The question caught him off-guard, and he wasn’t sure for a moment about how to answer. “Uh… I guess not.” He eventually answered. “What about you?”

            “I don’t know.” Darcy responded. “I think so.”

            He hadn’t expected that answer from the doctor, but after he was done being surprised, he tried to picture it: Darcy as a father. He couldn’t help but imagine Darcy with the whole package: a white picket fence, a beautiful home, a gorgeous wife (Dr. Park was who he pictured), and two—maybe three—kids. He knew that Darcy would make a wonderful father one day.

            However, that was when he had a thought that made him frown: there was simply no way for him to fit in that picture. If Darcy was to have a perfect future, he would have to leave him behind at some point. He would be alone again. Though it was selfish, Ansel scoffed and finally spoke. “I dunno, man.” He laughed nervously. “Kids are kind of a handful, don’t you think?”

            “I like kids.” Darcy answered. “Why, you don’t think I’d do a good job?”

            “W—well, _no_ , I… I didn’t mean it that way. You’d be amazing as a dad, it’s just…” He shook his head. “I mean, you’d… You’d never abandon me, would you?”

            Finally, Darcy turned his head to look at Ansel, paying full attention at last. “What?” He countered. “No. Don’t even ask that. I’d never do that.”

            “Well, you can’t stay with me _forever_ , Darcy.” Ansel acknowledged.

            Darcy turned his eyes back onto the road. “Nothing can stop me from trying,” he concluded.

* * *

 

            When they got to the hospital, Ansel took off Darcy’s scarf. As the doctor was about to open his door to let himself out, he extended it toward him, and he stared at it for a few seconds.

            “Keep it,” he told the insomniac before getting out of the car. Ansel shrugged inwardly and wrapped the dark blue cloth back around his neck before stepping out himself. Once Ansel’s door was closed, Darcy pressed a button on his key ring to lock the car, and then he took off in a sprint toward the stairs.

            “Whoa!” Ansel quickly tried to keep up, but there was no denying that when it came down to it, Ansel was the slower of them. That was why, when Darcy started jumping up the stairs two at a time, Ansel let out a loud groan of frustration. The doctor was more agile, and his legs were longer than Ansel’s despite them practically being the exact same height. “Darcy, slow down, you dick!” He screamed, but the older man paid him no mind, continuing to leap his way to the main floor. “ _Dar_ cy!!”

            “Cardio, Ansel!” Darcy called down to him before he hurled himself through the door to the lobby. After he flew into the room, Ryan stood up straight. The nurse seemed startled to see Darcy so suddenly. Catching his breath, the doctor adjusted his coat and approached the front desk, and as he did, Ryan seemed to shrink back, almost as if he was intimidated. “Ryan.” He greeted.

            “Dr. Adair.” Ryan quietly returned the gesture. “Where’s your scarf?”

            Darcy narrowed his eyes, only to be made that much more confused when him doing so made Ryan flinch. “I don’t know how it’s relevant at all, but Ansel has it.”

            “Oh.” Ryan stammered. “Is… Ansel—”

            Before the nurse could finish, the door flew open again, and in careened Ansel, who immediately put his hands on his knees, panting. “Bitch,” he managed to shout between breaths.

            “Yeah, he’s here.” Darcy then answered the unfinished question.

            “So…” Ryan made eye contact with Darcy cautiously. He seemed lost for words, and looked as though he’d just seen a ghost. “I… I’m confused.”

            “You think?” Ansel responded, still gasping for air.

            “About what?” Asked Darcy.

            Ryan laughed awkwardly. “It… It didn’t make any sense, but… Right after you called, like, the _second_ I hung up the phone, you walked in and asked to talk to my dad… With your scarf on.”

            Darcy quickly looked over at Ansel, who finally stood up straight to return the stunned gaze.

            “But that’s not possible.” Ansel responded in a voice that sounded distant due to shock. “He was with me this whole time.”

            “I know!” Ryan shouted back. “I mean, here I was thinking the call was fake, but, I mean, you and I can’t _both_ be imagining him right now!”

            “Look, Ryan, I’m real, alright?!” Darcy shouted, slamming his fists down on the desk and thus causing Ryan to flinch again. “What did this other me say to you?”

            Ryan shrugged and choked for a second. “W—well, nothing, really. He just asked to see my dad.”

            “Who’s your dad?” Ansel inquired, stepping forward.

            “Dr. Raimondi.” The nurse and doctor both answered, almost in sync.

            “The coroner?”

            “Yeah.” Ryan continued, “Anyway, I… I thought he was…” He paused, not believing that he was actually saying the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “… _really_ Dr. Adair, so I told him to look in the morgue.”

            “Then what?” Darcy questioned, looking intense.

            “Then, they came out of the morgue together and went to the parking lot. I tried to ask where they were going, but they both ignored me.”

            Darcy thought for a second, then muttered, “Dr. Raimondi’s car wasn’t there.” Then he tapped the desk somewhat eagerly. “Security cameras. Show me.”

            “I saw his car leave.” Ryan told him.

            “Which way?”

            “West, but I don’t think it matters. They could’ve gone anywhere.” Ryan worried.

            “We’ll find them, Ryan.” Darcy declared. “Your dad _and_ Dr. Park… Somehow.”

            Ryan nodded. After a short period of silence, he spoke again. “You’ve got a patient in your office.”

            “Tell them to leave.”

            “They said it was important.”

            Darcy huffed and rolled his eyes. He glanced back at Ansel, gesturing for him to follow him, and they walked down the hall toward Darcy’s office together.

            “How the hell are we going to find them?” Ansel questioned. “I mean, shouldn’t we be calling the cops?”

            “Ansel, what do you think the cops would say?” Darcy responded, somewhat annoyed. “They’d call us all crazy, and then they’d arrest me, because somehow, whatever is doing this just happens to be _wearing_ my _goddamn skin._ ”

            “Fine, no cops. But that doesn’t answer my first question.” The younger man remarked when they finally reached the door.

            “I don’t know what you want me to say, Ansel!” Darcy replied. “I’m trying my best here!”

            “I know you are, man, I’m just worried that we’re _stuck!_ We have _nothing_ to go off of, Darc!”

            “I’ll figure something out.” Darcy then opened the door to his office. He was shocked to see Jay sitting in front of his desk, and he watched the shorter man lift his hand and wiggle his fingers in a sort of wave.

            “What is it?” Ansel asked. “Darcy, what…” He pushed Darcy aside a bit to see past him and trailed off, frozen in place, when he too saw Jay. Jay noticed him, and he looked almost relieved.

            “Hey, Ansel.” He greeted in a soft voice. “It’s been a while.”

            Ansel started shaking his head, slowly at first, then as he started backing up his action grew gradually wilder. Darcy looked at him; he’d never seen Ansel around Jay in person, and he was only half surprised to see him growing so panicked. “Nonononono,” He started repeating the word over and over under his breath.

            “Ansel, come on, hear me out.”

            “Get out.” The demand was low and calm, though Ansel’s expression was a mixture of both fear and intense fury.

            “Honey Cakes?”

            “GET _OUT!!_ ” Ansel roared, his voice suddenly shrill, as he pointed off to his left.

            Realizing he would get nowhere fast trying to reason with Ansel, Jay put on a serious face and turned his eyes over to Darcy. “I know where your friends are.” He confessed.

            “Ansel.” Darcy didn’t avert his eyes from Jay as he spoke, trying to calm Ansel, but to no avail as the man threw himself into Darcy’s extended arm, which was placed firmly against the doorframe, and tried to shove past him.

            “I’LL TEAR YOUR FUCKING HEART OUT AND FEED IT TO YOUR _FAMILY!!_ ” He screamed, not caring that people in the halls were nervously staring and backing away.

            “Ansel!” Darcy shouted, doing his best to hold his friend back. He’d seen Ansel angry before, sure, but never _this_ angry. Honestly, it was frightening him, because he wasn’t sure if the death threats he was making were completely serious or not, but they seemed very genuine. He could only imagine what Jay must have done to Ansel to warrant this kind of reaction from him.

            Jay sighed and looked down, standing up, and as he did, Ansel elbowed Darcy in the side, causing the doctor to yelp and pull his arm back. The insomniac then dashed forward just two steps, and then he stood petrified before Jay. It had been two months since he was even in the same room as his former buddy. Realizing that almost appeared to make him cower somewhat. Jay held his arms out at his sides and did a slow shrug.

            “What, are you gonna hit me? Do it, then. Do it like that last night we had together.” He lift his left hand and delicately tapped his left cheek. “You hit me here first. Come on, Angel Face.”

            Ansel tightened his hands into fists and pulled his lips back in a large snarl of contempt, but he did not move. Jay wanted him to lash out. That was what he always wanted: to watch him lose control. After a few beats of no one doing anything, Jay finally lowered his arms.

            “You done, then?”

            “I should kill you where you stand.”

            Jay scoffed. “Well, don’t leave Dr. Adair a mess.” He then turned back to the doctor again. “Speaking of, I assume you’re looking for Dr. Park and Dr. Raimondi?”

            Darcy stood up straight and stepped closer. “How do you know about them?” He demanded to know.

            Jay shrugged his shoulders. “I know about all of this.” He admit. “About them being kidnapped. About your parents’ deaths. About that doppelgänger of yours wandering around.” Then he chuckled lowly, and Ansel nearly hit him, but didn’t. “It’s just, see… Well, this has all…” He did a gesture with his hands, moving them about almost randomly in front of his chest. “This has all gotten so _out of hand._ ”

            “So you _are_ behind this.” Ansel growled.

            Jay inhaled, then paused. “Yes.” He announced, but then corrected, “But also no.”

            “What do you mean?” Darcy.

            “See, I made the doppelgänger. I won’t deny that.”

            “How?”

            “Let’s just leave it at ‘black magic is pretty cool’, okay?”

            “Black magic isn’t real.” Darcy argued.

            “Okay, well, maybe not _black magic_ , per se. But whatever. My point is that the doppelgänger is very much real, but I was supposed to be able to control it.”

            “So you killed my father?” It was Darcy’s turn to start becoming utterly furious, but he kept it bottled up. It took a lot to make him act on his anger.

            “That’s where things get sort of complicated.” Jay seemed rightfully nervous. “I wanted to use it to get you out of the picture. To make you two hate each other so Ansel would come back to me.”

            “Not in a million years.” Ansel interrupted, but Jay didn’t pay any attention to him.

            “But, see, it, uh… It turns out that it kind of has a mind of its own?” He laughed apprehensively. “I _think_ it wants to take your place. Maybe. I don’t know. Why it kidnapped Dr. Park, or why it’s taking Dr. Raimondi? Both mysteries to me.”

            “Why should I believe a word you say?” Darcy interrogated.

            “Well, frankly, you shouldn’t.” Jay admit. “I’m telling the truth, though.”

            “Sure.” Ansel remarked sarcastically. “And just what motive do you have to tell us anything? Why bother?”

            “Because it wants _you_.” Jay disclosed as he whipped his head around to look at Ansel. “That much of my intent stayed, but I don’t think it has anything to do with me.” He looked at Darcy again. “It’s because _you_ want him.”

            “Um.” Darcy flinched at the wording of that sentence.

            “Your parents were useless to it. I don’t know what it wants with the coroner, but it wants Ansel as a companion, and Dr. Park…” Jay trailed off, waiting for Darcy to get the hint, which he did after a few seconds.

            “Oh God, no.”

            “ _Yeah_ , it’s… _interested_ in her, I assume.”

            “It can do that…?!”

            “It can do whatever it pleases. It was meant to mimic you.”

            “Well, _bang-up_ job it’s been doing so far!”

            “How do we stop it?” Ansel, surprisingly, was the one to ask this. “Some shady ritual?”

            Jay was quiet for a few seconds, meeting no one’s eye. “I’m… unclear on that.” He mumbled.

            “You’re _what?_ ” Darcy took a step forward, and Ansel looked at him out of the corner of his eye, noticing that the doctor was finally about to explode with fury, but didn’t try to stop him.

            “Well, I mean, there doesn’t actually seem to be a ritual to stop it.”

            “So you’re telling me,” as Darcy kept approaching, towering over Jay, the shorter man started to back away around the chair, “that you summoned some sort of _demon_ to take my form,” he picked up the chair and tossed it across the room, causing Ansel to flinch as it crashed into the wall, “kill my parents, stalk Ansel, and rape my co-worker,” he pinned Jay against the wall as his voice quickly became louder in outrage, “and you _don’t know how to stop it?!_ ”

            “Only you can kill it!” Jay shouted, putting his hands up in surrender. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that it can only be stopped if _you_ stab it in the heart! Th—that’s why I came here, honest!”

            Darcy glanced over at Ansel, who actually seemed sort of calm, if not solemn.

            “He’s not lying.” He answered the unspoken question. “He always smiles when he lies. He’s not smiling.”

            The doctor turned his hard glare back onto Jay, who smiled to ease the tension, but then immediately dropped it when he realized that would antagonize the taller man.

            “We just need to find it, and then you can stab it, and it will all be over.”

            “How can I be sure that you won’t pull something crazy like this again?” Darcy demanded.

            “I fucked up in the summoning ritual, okay? I won’t make a mistake like that again. Hell, I won’t even _touch_ any rituals anymore.” He frowned, and with guilty eyes, he grieved, “You’ve gotta understand, Doc, I didn’t mean for anyone to die. I didn’t mean for _any of this_ to happen. Everything that’s transpired is almost literally the exact _opposite_ of what I wanted.”

            “And what _did_ you want?” Darcy fumed.

            “I wanted you to leave Ansel. To go back to how you lived two months ago, with your dad, with your job. Just without Ansel.” He looked down. His voice trembling, he lamented, “I wanted to turn back the clock. No one was supposed to die.”

            Darcy looked over his shoulder at Ansel when the younger man let out a low sigh. He stepped closer, raising his head and taking a deep breath before speaking.

            “Look, Jelly Bean,” he began in a calm manner, using what Darcy assumed to be a pet name for Jay, “our run is over. I’m never going back to you. I moved on, and you really should too.”

            Jay shook his head. “I’ll wait.”

            “That’s unhealthy.” Ansel remarked. “I mean, in retrospect, summoning a demon is probably worse, but you get the point.”

            “Whatever.” Darcy interrupted. “You guys can settle your beef once this is over. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still a bag of dicks, Jay.”

            “Fair enough,” Jay mumbled.

            Darcy continued, “But my opinion might, and it’s a pretty big _might_ , change if you tell us where to find this son of a bitch.”

            “We’ll need your car.” The shorter man told him.

            “I’ll drive to the ends of the Earth to kill this thing. You owe me vengeance, so tell me _where._ ”


	9. Chapter 9

            Darcy didn’t think that it would be possible to have a more awkward car ride than the one he was involved in at that moment. Ansel sat beside him in the passenger seat, his arms and legs crossed tightly, and in the backseat behind Darcy sat Jay. Occasionally, Jay would give him directions on where to drive, but other than that, all three of them were silent.

            It was snowing outside, though still lightly so. Darcy quietly wondered when the snow would begin piling; it would be great if it didn’t, but he knew it would soon enough. He glanced at the rearview mirror, using it to look at the two others in the car, and he thought about his predicament. He hadn’t believed in the supernatural other than as a joke until just twenty minutes prior, when it was revealed that a demon was masquerading as him to kill his family and friends and “take his place”. Really, he _still_ wasn’t sure if he believed it, but what other explanation did he have? Ryan had seen his doppelgänger with his own two eyes. Even if he didn’t trust Jay and didn’t like Ryan, he couldn’t think of a reason why Ryan would lie about having seen something like that. He had looked genuinely frightened.

            Two months earlier, Darcy had been content with his life. He had been living with his father, and he was perfectly happy… or, at least, he had thought he was, until he met Ansel. Those two months with Ansel were brief, but they were the happiest of his life. Now everything was falling apart in front of him, and he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do about it. His father was dead. His mother, too. Dr. Park was missing and in danger, and Dr. Raimondi was gone as well, despite the fact that he and Darcy didn’t really know each other; they never spoke to one another except on very rare occasions. God only knew if Jay was telling the truth about his small level of involvement with everything that was going on. Clearly the shorter man had _something_ to do with his father’s death; how else did he have the security camera footage? However, that was for another time. He would deal with Jay when his doppelgänger was vanquished.

            That was when the hot, panicky feeling returned to him. Over the course of the day, he had come to learn what the feeling meant, and feeling it now only made him drive a bit faster. His doppelgänger was hurting someone he knew. He could only pray that it wasn’t Dr. Park.

            “Take a left,” Jay instructed. Darcy obeyed, and as he did, Ansel too thought.

            He had never been happier than he was while he was with Darcy. In fact, he reasoned, he would probably follow the man into the deepest pits of Hell and back if he needed to. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything that had happened over the last three days was his fault. If he hadn’t left Jay, he probably would’ve been miserable (if not dead), but Darcy’s parents would still be alive, and two others wouldn’t be in such immediate danger. He had been the indirect cause of two murders, at least. That blood was on _his_ hands.

            He heard whistling in his ears, but paid it no mind. It seemed to be coming from his right, but there was only a window there. Though he never mentioned it to Darcy, not wanting to worry him and all, he had been imagining things—hallucinating, really, though he didn’t like the second term, as it sounded too troubling. Sometimes he saw things out of the corners of his eyes that weren’t really there, but it was usually auditory sensations. As the whistling with no physical source continued, Ansel rubbed his lower eyelids with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand; his eyelids felt soft and loose, and he knew without even looking at himself that the rings around his eyes were probably intense, and mostly noticeable at the inner corners of the lids, where they connected with the bridge of his nose. He wanted to sleep, but even when he tried, he was always stuck in an awkward sort of pre-sleep limbo. The limbo was a frightening feeling for him, so he didn’t want to sleep just as much as he wanted to. The whistling grew louder. Agitated, Ansel couldn’t stop himself. “Who’s whistling?” He snapped. No one said anything, and he couldn’t see since he still had his fingers on his eyelids, but he imagined that Jay was staring at him, and Darcy was probably glancing over at him every few seconds. The whistling had stopped, though, so addressing his hallucination had not been without minor success.

            “Are you okay?” Darcy inquired, concerned about his friend’s health in general.

            “I’ll live.” Ansel answered.

            “Still having trouble sleeping?” It was Jay this time.

            “Are you kidding? What’s ‘sleep’?”

            Jay sighed, then turned his eyes onto the back of the seat in front of him, speaking to Darcy now. “Have you figured out yet?”

            “Figured what out?” Darcy looked back up at the rearview mirror again.

            “That I was the one who sent him to see you in the first place? I was concerned about him.”

            “Yeah,” Ansel droned sarcastically, “guess we’d better thank you for being a douchebag and for arranging our first meeting.”

            “I won’t deny that if I could go back and do it all over again, I would’ve let you have your way.” Jay responded, albeit somewhat bitterly. “You do remember that _you_ were the one who didn’t want to go visit ‘any stupid goddamn doctors’, right?”

            “Well, I’m glad I did.”

            “Whatever. Stop the car.”

            “What?” Darcy asked.

            “We’re here.”

* * *

 

            Jay led Darcy and Ansel into an abandoned office building. It was dark inside but for the few windows that let in light from outside, and the doctor found himself sticking quite close to his younger friend. He didn’t feel safe here, but considering he was supposed to be on his way to essentially stab himself in the heart, his apprehensiveness wasn’t all that surprising. The building smelled of cleaning products and what could have been burnt cheese, and the combined pungency of the two scents quickly made Ansel squint and tighten Darcy’s scarf over his nose and mouth.

            “Where would they be?” Darcy questioned quietly.

            “In the basement, probably. The boiler room.”

            “What makes you say that?” Ansel.

            “If you were a demon wanting to get dirty with a human, what room would you pick?”

            “Touché.”

            So, the forced trio found the staircase that led them into the basement, which led them to a pitch black hallway. None of them really wanted to be the first to step into the dark abyss, so they kept glancing at each other for a good twenty seconds until Darcy finally asked, “Aren’t there any lights?”

            “This building’s been abandoned for years. Why would there be—” As Jay spoke, Ansel ran his hand along the wall to their right, and when he found a light switch, he turned it on, causing overhead lights to click on in the hallway before them, “—lights—oh.”

            Ansel gestured into the now dimly-lit hallway. “After you.” He followed behind Jay and Darcy, the latter of whom ended up taking the lead, and as he did, he looked around. Something about this hallway looked familiar to him. It took him a bit, but it finally dawned on him: this was the hallway he’d run through in his nightmare, just before watching himself kill Darcy. Now made slightly paranoid by his déjà vu, Ansel raised his hands—palms sweaty—and began discreetly fiddling with the ends of his sleeves.

            They were quite far in the hallway when there was an opening to their right, and Darcy looked over. He was greeted by the sight of one last light shining down on the floor. The room before him was large and spacious, but most of it was illuminated by candles, some of which were on the floor, on long poles, or on menorahs placed randomly about the floor. At the far end of the room was a long pile of boxes with a sheet over it. Lying on the sheet, unconscious, was Dr. Park. Standing before her, backs turned to the three who had just arrived, were Dr. Raimondi and Darcy’s doppelgänger. They hadn’t seemed to notice the intruders.

            Darcy looked at Jay, who carefully slipped off his backpack. Being as quiet as he could, he put it down, unzipped it, and pulled out a large kitchen knife. He handed it to Darcy, who took it with reluctance before looking back at his doppelgänger. It and the coroner were still focused on Dr. Park, so Darcy took his chance, beginning to quietly step closer. Ansel took a slow step to follow, but Jay extended his arm and cut him off. The taller man shot his former friend a look, in response to which Jay only shook his head.

            The closer Darcy got to his demonic clone, the tenser he became. He hardly even breathed as he quietly shuffled slightly closer with every second. With trembling hands, he reached one arm out to grab his other self’s shoulder, in order to brace himself and get the power required to stab a knife through its chest. He had never done what he was about to do, but he knew that it wouldn’t be as easy as it was in the movies. He would need an insane amount of strength that even his adrenaline might not be able to give him. Having the jump on his opponent was essential. Stabbing through the back might be even harder than through the sternum, since he had less chance of hitting the heart, but it would have to do, at least as an attempt to stun it. Not leaving anything more to chance, when the doctor felt he was close enough, he clamped his hand down on his doppelgänger’s left shoulder. However, just as he was about to stab the knife into its back, it whipped around effortlessly and grabbed his wrist. He looked up at it, meeting its eyes— _his_ eyes but an ethereal blue color—before it bent his hand the wrong way, causing him to drop the knife, and threw its head back. He felt its forehead slam into his in a powerful head-butt, and it sent him back a few steps before he collapsed to the floor, reeling in pain.

            “Darcy!” Ansel shouted as he stepped forward. Dr. Raimondi finally turned around, looking down at his co-worker sprawled down onto the floor and clicking his tongue in disappointment.

            “Really, Dr. Adair,” the coroner sighed, “you didn’t think it would be _that_ easy, did you?”

            When Jay started to snicker, Ansel whipped his head around to stare at him.

            “Jay?” He tried to speak, but he was only able to say the name on a low breath. He watched his former friend walk across the room, stepping over Darcy, and it finally dawned on him what had happened when Jay picked the knife up. “You son of a bitch… This was a trap!”

            “Sorry, Ansel.” Jay responded casually with a shrug. “I really didn’t have anything to do with anyone’s deaths. I only summoned the demon.”

            “Then why bring us here?!” Ansel demanded.

            Dr. Raimondi, his eyes blue and almost seeming to glow if Ansel didn’t know any better, answered, “Cleaning up loose ends. Dr. Adair got too nosy.”

            Ansel felt himself pale. “You… _You_ killed Darcy’s parents?” His saying that finally got Darcy off of his back, but he only sat up, staring at his co-worker with wide eyes. He started scooching backwards, toward Ansel, not wanting to try to stand up right in front of his three assailants.

            “Demons demand sacrifices, Mr. Hunnisett. It seemed only fitting to remove my only competition. Removing his loved ones would help, too. No one left to ask questions.”

            “Competition for what?!” Darcy shouted at him. The doctor finally got to his feet beside Ansel, who helped him stand.

            “For Ansel.” Jay spoke.

            “For Avery.” Dr. Raimondi corrected. He looked back at Dr. Park, then continued, “She’s a beautiful specimen, isn’t she? So young and pure…”

            “You’re disgusting,” Ansel couldn’t keep himself from saying. “She won’t want you for this!”

            Dr. Raimondi glanced back at them with a smirk on his face. “Oh, who ever said that she would be alive to refuse me? I’m a coroner, Mr. Hunnisett. I admire the dead.”

            “You’re a necrophiliac?!” The young man shouted, even more disgusted than he had been prior to the reveal.

            “Call it what you will.”

            Jay handed the knife over to Darcy’s doppelgänger, who held it in a firm grip, then he stood on his toes to wrap his arm around the demon’s shoulders. “Hey, Ansel.” He hollered. “Watch this!” Then, he punched the demon in the gut, which earned from it hardly even a flinch. However, beside Ansel, Darcy let out a grunt of pain and jolted forward, arms shooting to wrap around his stomach. Ansel looked at his friend, then back at Jay with a confused expression.

            “What?” The insomniac muttered briefly.

            “It’s like a voodoo doll!” Jay slugged the demon across the face, causing Darcy to fall into Ansel, who caught him. “Isn’t black magic fuckin’ awesome?!”

            “Cut it out!” Ansel demanded. Jay went to hit the doppelgänger again, but Dr. Raimondi raised his hand, so he stopped.

            “I’m dreadfully sorry for all of this.” The coroner remarked. “You two and your loved ones are merely collateral damage.” Jay, who had been smirking, quickly lost his smile and glanced over at Dr. Raimondi with those words, but let the coroner continue, “Now, you must die.”

            “Wait,” Jay began with an awkward laugh, “that… That wasn’t part of the deal. Ansel’s off-limits.”

            “He made the mistake of getting involved.” Dr. Raimondi announced. “If he lives, he’ll ruin everything.”

            The short black-haired man turned, shaking his head profusely. “No. No, we had an _agreement_ —”

            “The agreement was made null the second he stepped into this building.”

            Darcy’s doppelgänger turned toward Jay, who took a step back.

            “Don’t do this,” he gasped.

            “Jay?” Ansel tensed up, but didn’t move.

            The demon grabbed Jay’s shoulder with a grip so tight that Ansel heard his former friend’s joint being crushed before the screaming started. Just as quickly as Jay began crying out, the demon stabbed the knife into his chest with enough force to shatter his sternum, silencing his cries as suddenly as they started.

            “ _JAY, NO!!_ ” Ansel tried to run forward, but Darcy grabbed his arm, pulling him back as he too stared at the scene before them in horror. The doctor again felt that hot, tingling sensation. He could almost feel the muscles in his arms contracting as though _he_ was the one stabbing Jay.  
“ _JAAY!!_ ”

            Jay crumpled to the floor the second he was released. Dr. Raimondi kept his eyes on the two terrified men in front of him, glaring.

            Ansel couldn’t contain his fury. He hadn’t been sure about how he truly felt about Jay in the past two months, but seeing him die wasn’t what he wanted. Ripping himself free from Darcy’s grip, he rushed toward the doppelgänger. “ _YOU SON OF A BITCH!!_ ”

            “ _Ansel!_ ” Darcy hollered. He was relieved when it didn’t seem like his doppelgänger was going to fight back, but when Ansel slammed his fist into its right cheekbone, he felt the blow, and it nearly knocked him off of his feet as much as it knocked the thoughts out of his head.

            Ansel blindly kept beating the living hell out of the demon, either not realizing or not caring that he was therefore beating the living hell out of Darcy himself. He kept screaming incoherently in rage. The more he struck the creature before him, the more Darcy was practically flung about the room, choking out noises of pain that fell on deaf ears. Soon, Ansel tore the knife from the demon’s hands, raising it to begin stabbing wildly.

            “Wait!” Darcy managed to shout. Ansel stopped mid-thrust, frozen in place by the sound of Darcy’s voice.

            “Go on.” Dr. Raimondi urged beside him. “Do it. The demon will be vanquished. Don’t you want that?”

            Ansel slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder at Darcy. While the demon looked completely unaffected by anything Ansel had done to it, Darcy had the start of a black eye, and his nose was bruised and bleeding. The split on his lip had opened again, coating his teeth and chin with a line of blood. The doctor breathed heavily and shakily as he trembled, looking at Ansel. Surprisingly, he nodded.

            “Do it,” he insisted. “Kill that damn thing.”

            Ansel, horror written across his face, quickly turned his eyes onto Dr. Raimondi. “Darcy will die.” He stated in a flat voice that barely expressed his inner protest.

            “Maybe,” Raimondi responded, “maybe not.”

            Ansel looked at the demon, who stared at him silently. It didn’t seem to care either way. Then, he looked down at the knife, dyed red with Jay’s blood. He shook his head, taking a step back. “No, I… I can’t. I’m not a killer. Even if I was… I can’t risk killing Darcy.”

            Dr. Raimondi frowned. “How disappointing.”

            Ansel threw the knife off blindly to his left, into an area the candles and light above them didn’t reach. “This ends now.” He announced toward the coroner. “There’s nothing else you can do, so—” He was halfway through his words when the coroner suddenly fell forward, and he stopped talking, merely gawking down at the old man’s body.

            Darcy watched his doppelgänger, which had taken Dr. Raimondi out with only a look, turn its head back toward Ansel. Luckily, Ansel did not drop dead, but then he blinked, and suddenly it was gone. “Wh—…” He couldn’t find anything to say.

            Ansel looked at Darcy, saw his shocked face, and then turned to look at the demon again, only to see nothing, which caused him to jump back. “Huh?!” He gasped. “Wh—where’d it go?!”

            “It’s… gone.” Darcy observed, stunned.

            “No shit!”

            They both stayed still and quiet for a good thirty seconds, or possibly even a whole minute. Nothing happened. Ansel slowly turned around, looking at Darcy, and their eyes met. Jaws hanging agape, they stared at each other in silence for a few more beats.

            “Is…” Ansel stammered, “Is it _over_ , then?”

            “I don’t know _what_ just happened…” Darcy muttered. “But let’s get out of here before something _else_ happens.”

            Ansel agreed, and he rushed over to Dr. Park as Darcy approached and knelt down beside Dr. Raimondi.

            “She’s alive,” Ansel observed.

            “He isn’t,” replied Darcy as he checked for a pulse on the coroner. “That thing just killed him with a glance…!”

            “Heh, I guess looks really _can_ kill.”

            “I’m laughing inside, Ansel.”

            “Right, bad time. Sorry.”

            Darcy glanced over at Jay. Even though he had led them into a trap, he still felt bad for the guy; he had only wanted a friend. “He didn’t deserve to die.”

            Ansel looked over at Jay as well and said nothing, but in his head, he found himself overcome with grief. As Darcy stood, he solemnly began to speak. “You know, he and I had some good times together.” He mourned. “He took me in when I had nowhere to stay, just like you did. Hell, he was like a brother to me. We just weren’t good for each other. He brought out the worst in me and vice versa.” He slowly shook his head. “I wish it hadn’t come to this. I don’t think I hated him as much as he probably died thinking I did.”

            Darcy walked over to him and checked his pulse. Ansel watched him quietly, and he looked up at his friend to shake his head, watching Ansel turn away in sorrow. “I’m sorry.”

            “Whatever.” Ansel struggled to speak without crying, and was almost successful. “We’ll tip someone about his body later. Let’s focus on getting your girlfriend out of here first.”

            “She isn’t my girlfriend,” Darcy grumbled, though he was somewhat flustered.

            “Sure, sure.” Ansel teased. “I’ll carry her out. You’re pretty banged up.” Then, remembering that he was the cause of that, he mumbled, “Sorry.”

            Darcy frowned at Ansel, but the latter’s following glossy brown puppy dog eyes made him sigh in defeat and smile. “I can’t stay mad at you, Poppet.”

            “Piss off,” Ansel playfully replied.

            After Ansel picked up Dr. Park, still unconscious, in a bridal carry, the duo started walking back to the doorway they’d entered through, leaving the death in the room behind them. They had both lost a lot, including their innocence, but their friendship was the one thing left unharmed by the events of the past three days, and Ansel thought that was kind of ironic, seeing as that was the only thing that was supposed to have been destroyed. Still, he found it hard to believe that only six hours ago, he and Darcy had been sitting at their kitchen table, and he had thought the doctor was crazy for assuming his father’s presumed suicide had been a murder. Now, three others were dead, and a demon had just appeared and vanquished itself. It felt like their lives had been flipped completely upside down, yet it had only strengthened their love for each other.

            “When I get home,” Darcy determined with a straight posture and his hands in his coat pockets, “I’m gonna eat a dickload of peanuts.”

            Ansel couldn’t help but chuckle. Everything was going to turn out okay in the end, it seemed. “Darcy, I—”

            There was a small snap, the sound of flesh being punctured, and Darcy gasping in pain. All three sounds occurred to Ansel’s right almost at once, and it was almost in slow motion that Ansel stopped walking. He stood there, his mind swimming with something despite being completely blank, for a few seconds before he slowly turned to look at his friend.

            Darcy had his hand over his chest. He lowered his head little by little, looking down at his hand before leisurely pulling it away. A bloodstain was starting to form on the center of his grey t-shirt, and he watched the cloth absorb the viscous liquid while he trembled. Ansel did nothing but stare with his mouth open slightly. There was something that caught his eye in his peripheral vision, so he looked back toward where they’d just been; standing in front of the boxes that Dr. Park had been lying on was Darcy’s doppelgänger, holding the hilt of the tossed knife against its chest. It had stabbed itself in the heart.

            Ansel looked back at Darcy when the doctor shakily raised his head, and their eyes met. They said nothing until Darcy tried to speak, managing only to choke out half of a gasp that led a trickle of crimson blood to spill out from the leftmost corner of his lips. “ _Darcy,_ ” the younger man wheezed in quiet trauma.

            The demon twisted the knife in its chest, earning a very brief cry from Darcy, who gave a violent twitch before his right leg gave out and he began to tip toward Ansel. The younger man carelessly dropped Dr. Park, who landed on the floor between them with a thud, and caught Darcy. However, the doctor only landed against him to slide down, so Ansel crumpled to his knees as Darcy fell, catching his head on his lap as his back fell against Dr. Park’s legs.

            Darcy choked for air quietly. His trembling was slowly stopping, and his wide brown eyes were still staring up at Ansel as they seemed to grow increasingly unfocused. It was obvious that he was slipping in and out of consciousness.

            “Nonono,” Ansel spoke quietly and wildly as he gently shook Darcy, “no, stay with me, Darc, please stay with me—don’t do this. You won’t die here, you _can’t_ , just stay with me, _please_! Darcy!”

            Despite his desperate pleas, Ansel watched Darcy’s trembling stop. The doctor’s eyes stared up blankly, devoid of life, and he wasn’t moving at all.

            “ _Darcy_ ,” he cried as his eyes began to blur with tears. Overcome quickly with absolute emotional agony, he took a loud inward sob of breath before screaming, “ _DAARCYYY!!_ ” Then he began to weep, wracked by howls of anguish. He tugged Darcy closer to himself, burying his face into the man’s hair in the space between his shoulder and head, and dug his fingers deeply into his white coat, holding him as tightly as he could as he bawled.

            The demon stood quietly, watching the scene before itself without any reaction. It took a minute, but soon it stepped closer, and as it did, Ansel looked up at it with eyes emptied by despair. It still had the knife lodged into its chest.

            “What do you want?” Ansel demanded with a worn voice.

            “Ansel, you know what I want.” It responded. It sounded just like Darcy, which was more than the young man could handle. He felt he might go insane.

            “Bring Darcy back.” He begged as he adjusted his tight grip on the dead doctor. “Give him back to me, please. I don’t ask much of anyone. I just want him back.” He sniffled and lowered his head. “He doesn’t deserve to die. Not like this… Please, take me instead. Not Darcy. _Anyone but Darcy…_ ”

            The demon stepped closer, then bent down to grab Ansel. As it did, the young man abruptly shot his head up. Before the demon could react, he grabbed the hilt of the knife, yanked it out of its chest, and then stabbed it through its throat. This, the demon did seem to react to, as it tried to pull back with a stunned expression on its face, but Ansel’s other hand was gripping its copy of Darcy’s coat, so it only jolted somewhat. Fury in his watery brown eyes, Ansel bared his teeth at it.

            “It was another lie,” he snarled, “Only _I_ can kill you. So I’m gonna make your death nice and slow.”

            Pulling himself to his feet, Ansel ripped the knife from the doppelgänger’s throat and threw his whole weight into the stunned demon, knocking it to the floor. Sitting over it, he held its head sideways against the floor and started wildly stabbing at its temple until he was finally making headway.

            “Maybe I can’t save Darcy,” he roared, “but I can make you _pay_ for what you _did to him!!_ ”

            The more Ansel stabbed, the more his mind fogged over. He thought only of vengeance—of Darcy, and the good times they’d had together. The grief he felt seeing his memories replaying in his head—hearing Darcy’s gentle voice and his contagious laugh—only fueled him to keep stabbing as he belted out a primal cry of both rage and suffering. He didn’t even realize it when he started stabbing into only the floor, but after a few thrusts of the knife slamming into the ground, he dropped it and brought his hands to his face. He sat there shuddering in silence for what felt like an eternity despite only really being a few seconds. His mind was blank.

            When Darcy came to, he gasped loudly for air. Gulping the oxygen in the room greedily, he brought his hand to his chest while staring up at the ceiling. His shirt was still wet with blood, but he wasn’t in any pain—somehow, the stab wound was gone. He was laying on something, so he looked to his left and discovered that he was laying on top of Dr. Park’s legs. Then, he sat up, panting. He didn’t understand. The last thing he remembered was looking at Ansel. He had been dying. Everything had gone black. And yet, there he was, alive and breathing. When he looked to his right, he saw Ansel on his knees, and found himself flooded with relief. “Ansel,” he breathed.

            Ansel twitched. Darcy watched him stand on unsteady legs and turn to look at him. He’d never seen Ansel so emotional, never mind so _happy_.  
“Darcy…”

            Darcy didn’t know what else to say, so he just smiled. Ansel returned the gesture, and Darcy thought he was going to come rushing over, but his own smile faded immediately as he watched Ansel topple over. “Ansel?” He quickly clambered to his feet and hurried to Ansel’s side, where he got down on his knees and began shaking his friend gently. “Ansel, wake up.” He insisted, somewhat nervous. “Ansel? Ansel!”

* * *

 

            Darcy was sitting in his office quietly, staring at a folder that had just been handed to him by a different doctor. It was late in the evening, or maybe the middle of the night, he wasn’t sure.

            After Ansel fainted, he had taken him and Dr. Park one at a time and put them in his car. During the drive to the hospital, Dr. Park awoke, only to gasp when she saw Darcy. It took a hell of a lot of explaining to get her to calm down, but she soon stopped screaming and sat quietly for the rest of the drive. Ansel, on the other hand, stayed completely unconscious until halfway through the exams the other doctors performed on him. He had fought them at first, apparently, but eventually gave in. As the results were being determined, Ansel was brought back to Darcy’s office, but was then taken into the doctor’s private exam room to rest. He hadn’t even seemed to notice Darcy, and he didn’t walk on his own.

            It had probably been a few hours. Darcy now held the folder that contained the results of the exams and scans on Ansel. He stared at the folder for a long moment without doing anything, just staring at it in mute apprehension. Then, he reluctantly opened it. There was a final diagnosis included, and that was all that the doctor looked at.

            Darcy Adair had been the bearer of bad news several times to his patients. As a doctor, that was kind of his shtick. However, as he stared at the final diagnosis, he felt his heart sink worse than it ever had before. When he read the words typed onto the paper, he slumped back into his chair, just staring at them in disbelief.

            “Fatal familial insomnia”. It wasn’t anything he’d ever heard of before, not once in his three years as a doctor. The evidence given for the diagnosis, among other things, included Ansel’s inability to sleep, and his apparent claims during the examinations of panic attacks and auditory hallucinations, the latter of which Darcy had never even been made aware of.

            The tall man sat up in his chair, then hunched forward with his elbows against his desk, paper in his face. He cupped his mouth with his free hand when his vision began to blur with tears, and suddenly he was crying.

            “Suck it up, man!” The doctor thought to himself. He tried to contain himself, but it was no use; he was too emotional and sentimental a man to stop himself from crying. The diagnosis he had made initially hadn’t been fatal, or even of any real concern, but the paper before him said that at this rate, Ansel only had maybe a little over a month now to live. Honestly, he knew that he had never before hoped so strongly that the results he’d been given were wrong.

            It took him at least five minutes to finally work up the strength to approach the door to his exam room. He slowly pulled it open, allowing it to creak loudly as he did, and then he looked up from the floor to Ansel.

            The younger man, sitting up on the table and wearing only a hospital gown over his briefs, glanced over in Darcy’s direction somewhat vacantly. He looked completely worn out. “Hey,” he greeted in a quiet voice.

            Darcy said nothing. He only walked over, standing in front of Ansel, who stared at him.

            “They give you my diagnosis, or am I gonna have to wait another two hours?” Ansel joked weakly. “Clean bill of health, right? I mean, I feel peachy.”

            Darcy did nothing. Ansel’s small smirk began to fade when he noticed just how distraught his friend looked.

            “What’s wrong?” He finally asked, albeit in a small voice.

            Darcy abruptly wrapped his arms around Ansel, embracing him tightly. Ansel held his arms up, but didn’t hug Darcy back, too confused to do anything.

            “Darc?”

            “I’m sorry,” Darcy sobbed, placing one of his hands on the back of Ansel’s neck and holding his head closer to his shoulder, “I’m so sorry.”

            It finally dawned on Ansel that his diagnosis wasn’t good. He felt his heart begin beating a little bit faster, but he only slumped easier into Darcy. Reluctantly, he placed his hands on the doctor’s back as the older man began crying a bit more intensely. They stayed this way, holding each other close, for several minutes. Neither of them wanted to let go. The end was nigh, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.


	10. Chapter 10

            It was five o’clock in the evening on December 24th. Darcy Adair was sitting quietly on the couch. The television was off, but the lights were on. It was dead silent in the apartment. Nothing was the same with Ansel in the hospital. The apartment just felt… empty without him.

            Over the course of the month, Ansel had stayed in a room at the hospital. His physical and mental states had both deteriorated, and though he could hardly stand and was losing weight at a rapid pace, he still smiled whenever he saw Darcy. He rarely spoke, however, and sometimes, he only seemed to be half-conscious. Seeing his best friend this way killed Darcy a little more with each passing day. That was why, on the 22nd, he stopped going to work. He couldn’t will himself to see Ansel anymore. It would be the death of him. At the same time, though, he felt absolutely abysmal about leaving him all alone. He couldn’t win. As he sat on the couch, he had his hands buried in his hair, which was messier than normal. It was almost harder to tell which of the two of them was in a worse state. Darcy could hardly function.

            His last visit with Ansel, on the night of the 21st, he had done nothing but cry at the foot of Ansel’s bed.

            “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he’d wept. “We were supposed to have a happy ending. You aren’t supposed to die.”

            “Don’t cry, Peanut,” was all Ansel had responded with.

            It had finally started to really snow outside earlier that month. It was piling on the roads and sidewalks, much more than it usually did this time of year. Snow days were called left and right, but despite this, it still wasn’t overwhelmingly cold outside.

            Sitting on the couch reminded him of Ansel, but then again, so did the entire apartment. Thoughts of his best friend tormented him. He couldn’t help but feel like the young man’s rapid descent into illness was his fault. He had dragged him along that day. He had decided to diagnose him merely with insomnia and anxiety rather than do any examinations. His lack of knowledge had cost Ansel his future, not that knowing anything about his condition probably would have helped anything.

            He could lose anyone. His father, his mother, fine. He could lose _anyone_. _Anyone_ but Ansel. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. Dr. Park had been the only person to come out of November 28 th without any distress. All she seemed concerned about was how Darcy seemed increasingly closed off to any outside help. He wanted to wallow in his misery alone.

            By this point, he had only known Ansel for about four months, but somehow, he had loved that man like his own family from day one. He didn’t know how he would live without him. He would be all alone after Ansel died. For the first time in his life, the doctor found himself honestly contemplating suicide.

* * *

 

            It was as normal a night as ever for everyone else. The grocery store had two hours until closing, and a cashier was working her normal shift, dealing with normal customers. That was, until a man who looked like he was on death’s door stepped in front of her. She recognized him as a regular, albeit one she hadn’t seen in over a month, but she didn’t say anything until she rung up his only purchase: a box of jelly-filled donuts. “Where’s your friend?” She asked when she finally did speak.

            “How much?” He ignored her question and spoke in a weak, slurred pant. She thought that maybe he was drunk, but he smelled more like a hospital than alcohol.

            “Four ninety-nine.” She answered, putting the donuts in a bag and placing it on the surface to her left. The man slapped down a twenty dollar bill, but as she was about to get him his change, he grabbed the bag and took off. “Wait!” She called after him. “This is too—” –he was gone— “—much…” Deciding it was his loss, she sighed, shrugged it off, and turned her attention onto the next customer.

* * *

 

            Darcy wasn’t sure how long he sat on the couch with his head in his hands, but it must have been a long time. From the bedroom, he heard his cellphone start ringing, but he paid it no mind; he figured it was either Dr. Park calling in concern for his wellbeing, or Dr. Park calling him with bad news about Ansel, neither an option that he could handle at that given moment. He just kept sitting there, trying not to think about anything but the darkness before his closed eyes.

            Two minutes later, the landline started to ring. He didn’t move to answer it, but at the same time, he didn’t move to turn off the answering machine, either. He would just have to face whatever he heard, because he couldn’t will himself to do so much as twitch.

            “Hey, you’ve reached the home phone of Darcy Adair—”

            “—and Ansel Hunnisett.”

            “We can’t come to the phone right now, so feel free to leave a message after the beep, and we’ll call you back once we get the chance!” His own voice, so happy, sounded so foreign to him.

            Beep.

            “Darcy…”

            The doctor’s head shot up when he heard what he could have sworn was Ansel’s voice on the answering machine. Beyond that, though, he didn’t move. He just stared off at nothing, paralyzed, as the voice continued.

            “It’s me. I checked myself out. If I’m gonna die, I sure as hell ain’t gonna do it in a shitty hospital bed.” He let out a forced chuckle. It sounded like it was taking him a lot of strength to talk, and when he resumed, he sounded sad. “Look, I… I know it’s selfish of me to force you to be around me right now. I must look like death… but I don’t want to be alone, Darcy.” He was growing emotional, and he was struggling to keep his voice from cracking, but to no avail. “It was hellish walking all the way here, you know? My boots suck. But I… I did it because I don’t think… I don’t think I have very much time _left_ , Peanut… I’m downstairs. First floor, at the staircase. I… I can’t make it up the stairs on my own, man. I feel like I’m on my last legs. So… come get me. Or don’t…” He sniffled a bit, then laughed somberly, “Please tell me you’re there to hear this, you fuckin’ prick. I’ll be waiting…”

            Several seconds passed with Darcy merely continuing to sit where he did without moving. Then, without thinking, he jumped to his feet, practically leaping over the back of the couch and making a mad dash to the door. He tore it open, not bothering to close it behind himself as he took off in a mad sprint down the hall, barefoot and wearing only loose-fitting slacks and a white button-up shirt that was only half done up. After throwing himself into the stairwell, he nearly flew down the stairs, thankful that he hadn’t bothered to put socks on, because if he had he knew he would have slipped and injured himself given how fast he was going. He stopped at the landing between the first and second floor, staring down, when he saw Ansel leaning on the railing with a grocery bag tied loosely around his left wrist. The younger man raised his head to look at him when he stopped, his face pale and clammy and the rings around his eyes as dark as night. They stared at each other in silence, Ansel’s ragged breaths the only sound either of them made, for what must have been twenty seconds or more.

            “Well?” Ansel finally spoke. “Are you gonna stare at me all night, or are you gonna help me up?”

            Darcy hurried down the steps and wrapped Ansel’s right arm, formerly on the railing, around his shoulders, placing his own left arm around his friend’s waist to help support him. “Let’s take the elevator.” He managed to say despite his mixed emotions.

            “That’s unlike you,” Ansel joked.

            “Yeah, well, you’re dying, so I’ll make an exception.”

            With a shaky hand, Darcy pressed the button to call the elevator. While they waited, Ansel leaned into him.

            “My head hurts,” the younger man griped casually with a small smirk.

            “Stay with me,” Darcy begged, barely hiding his emotion.

            “Don’t worry, Peanut, I don’t plan on goin’ anywhere just yet…”

            The elevator doors opened, and Darcy practically had to drag Ansel in. He pushed a button for their floor, and then the doors closed. When the elevator started to move, he glanced down at Ansel; the man had his eyes closed, so he shook him gently. “Hey, come on.” He spoke nervously. Trying to find something to keep him talking, he asked, “What’s in the bag?”

            “You’ll see…” Ansel remarked in a low breath, keeping his eyes closed as his head lay against Darcy’s shoulder.

            With a ding, the doors opened, and Darcy half-carried Ansel back to their apartment. Once inside, he closed the door with his foot before walking Ansel over to the kitchen table, sitting him down on one of the chairs. The younger man forced himself to stay sitting upright as he lift his left arm, sitting the grocery bag down on the table. Darcy stood beside him as he pulled the bag off of his wrist, pushing it a bit further onto the table.

            “There.” He said.

            Reluctantly, Darcy stepped closer to the center of the table, standing along the longer side to Ansel’s left, and grabbed the bag. When he pulled it open, he was surprised to see a box of jelly-filled donuts. “What…?” He trailed off, unsure of how to react.

            “Happy Hanukkah.” Ansel announced. “I’ve been planning tonight for a long time, but I didn’t expect to be looking my death in the face, so this was all I was able to do. These are close enough, right?”

            His eyes beginning to burn, Darcy looked at Ansel. “You… You checked yourself out of the hospital tonight… and bought jelly donuts… to spend _Hanukkah_ with me?” He struggled to ask without bursting into tears, though he realized that the situation would have been slightly comical if Ansel weren’t deathly ill.

            “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re not Jewish.” The younger man fretted.

            “No, I—I _am_ Jewish. It’s not that, it’s just…” Darcy couldn’t figure out what he was actually trying to say, so instead of speaking, he put the box of donuts down and pulled Ansel into an embrace that the weak younger man did his best to reciprocate. “ _Oh, Ansel…_ ” He wept, “You should’ve stayed in the hospital…”

            “Like I said, I’m not gonna let myself die in that shithole,” Ansel argued. “I’d rather die in _our_ shithole. Let’s sit on the couch.”

            Darcy took a moment to regain his composure before helping Ansel onto his feet and walking him over to the couch. After sitting him down, he sat down beside him, to his right, and they sat there for a moment in silence. It got kind of awkward, so Darcy grabbed the remote off of the arm of the couch and turned on the television. He took a look through the guide until he found a live fireplace channel, switching to that, which earned an amused snort from Ansel.

            “A yule log burning?” He asked. “That’s so Christian.”

            “ _You’re_ Christian,” Darcy reminded him, vaguely entertained.

            “Oh, _yeah_ …” His playing dumb caused them both to share a soft but genuine laugh. Then, they were quiet again until Ansel suddenly disclosed, “You know what? I’ve been thinking, and… I think I kinda _like_ the name ‘Poppet’.”

            Darcy hummed in delight, but his brows furrowed and his lips began to quiver. After a few more seconds of silence, he jumped when Ansel fell over, his head landing softly against his lap. “A—Ansel?”

            “I’m not dead,” the insomniac replied. “I’m just… really tired.”

            Though he felt like he was on the border of hysteria, the doctor began gently petting Ansel’s head. “Well, come on now, don’t sleep just yet,” he struggled to insist calmly, “it’s hardly even six.”

            “Wow,” Ansel laughed quietly, “I guess _I’m_ the lame one now…”

            Darcy didn’t realize he was crying until the tears dripped down off of his face, landing in Ansel’s hair. “Isn’t the fireplace nice?” He inquired, his voice growing increasingly unstable.

            “Sure…”

            Neither of them said anything.

            “Ansel?”

            “Yep…” He sounded like he was half-asleep.

            “I… I love you.”

            “Ditto…”

            “Ansel…”

            “Fine, _fine_ … I love you too…”

            Darcy breathed heavily and quietly for a few beats.

            “Happy Hanukkah, Peanut…”

            “Merry Christmas, Poppet…”

            With that, Ansel finally let himself fall asleep. Darcy wept.

* * *

 

            There was a knock on his office’s door, but he paid it no mind. He had dumped the contents of his box of files onto his desk, and he was using the box to carry anything he wanted to take out of the office. This included the picture of his father, as well as some other things. Soon enough, the person on the other side of the door finally tried to open it, and was successful since it was unlocked.

            “Dr. Adair,” it was Dr. Park, “I heard you were resigning.”

            Darcy hardly even stopped moving. “Yeah.” He replied.

            “Because of Ansel?”

            “Yeah.”

            The woman let out a low sigh. “You did the best you could.” She told him. “You know that, right?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Are you just going to say ‘yeah’ to everything I ask?”

            “Probably,” he answered as he placed the box on his desk, “yeah.”

            Dr. Park stepped closer to him, and quietly she told, “If it amounts to anything, Dr. Adair, I think you were a great doctor. You saved my life.”

            “Five people are dead because of me, Dr. Park.” Darcy responded, not even looking at her.

            “I don’t blame you for any of it. I don’t think anyone does.”

            Darcy said nothing. He slowly looked down at the pile of files on his desk, and he leisurely started to stack them neatly. When he was done, he told her, “You can have my patient files.”

            She looked at the folders, then back at him. “All of them?”

            “I only want one.” Then, he pulled from the pile the second folder made for Ansel. She watched him as he placed the folder gently into his box of personal effects, and then he headed for the door.

            “Dr. Adair,” she called after him, making him stop in the door. He didn’t turn to look at her, and she didn’t turn to look at him, but regardless she requested, “Take care of yourself, would you?”

            There was a long pause.

            “Goodbye, Dr. Park.”

            Dr. Park lowered her head. It really was a shame that he was leaving, since she really had liked him, but she knew that nothing she had to say would ever be enough to convince him to stay. He needed time to be alone, and she respected that, albeit reluctantly. So, with good intention, she spoke to him the last words he would hear from her lips: “Godspeed, Darcy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of _Don't Sleep Just Yet._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Start of _Don't Wake Me Up._

            Bradley Carlisle had been a high-school teacher for two years. He taught a computer class, and he really enjoyed his job. He was well-liked by his students and co-workers, and he had a loving fiancée. However, there were some things about himself that he liked to keep hidden. No one but his wife-to-be knew about his dark past, and he was more than okay with that: he wanted to move on with his life. The crimes he had commit in the past were just that: in the past. He wanted to be a normal man. A _good_ man.

            That was why he was so confused by how he’d ended up dabbling in his past habits again. Just over a week ago, he had been doing just fine in keeping everything under control, but what had started as a good deed had wound up ruining the lives of everyone he knew. His poor fiancée… He couldn’t figure out where he’d gone wrong. His action had seemed so innocent. How had this happened?

            He looked at his latest friend, who was staring back at him in terror. It was just them now, with their backs to a dead end. They were surrounded by dozens of nearly-human creatures that they could do no harm to. They were cornered. They were _doomed_. As they stared at each other, they blindly grabbed for each other’s hands.

            It was all over.

* * *

 

            November 26th, 2018. It was a Monday. It was also a day just like any other for Bradley Carlisle… or so it seemed, until his lunch break. After the bell rung, he went down to the staff room, like he always did. A small group of his female co-workers were inside chatting, and they greeted him briefly as he entered, before returning to their discussion. Quietly, Bradley walked over to the coffee machine, a smile on his face. He was used to being the quiet type, known more for eavesdropping than actually holding decent conversation. As he poured himself a cup, he listened in to what was being said.

            “Have any of you seen the new nurse?” One of the women asked. “I heard he’s just _dreamy_.”

            His favorite of the girls, a black-haired math teacher named Molly Barton, scoffed before sardonically adding, “I heard he was overqualified.”

            Suddenly, Bradley found himself interested in their gossip. He was usually the first to find out when there was a new member of the staff, even if they were a janitor, but he had been completely oblivious about them having a new nurse. So, he turned to look at them, took two steps forward, and spoke. “Ladies,” he began in a friendly tone, “may I join the conversation?”

            “Sure, Brad.” Molly welcomed him. She had been a teacher for only a year, and she looked to be about twenty-eight years old, but she was definitely the friendliest of Bradley’s co-workers (at least out of the women, anyway).

            Bradley took a sip of his coffee. The computer teacher was a 5’9” man who was a bit stocky, but in a way that most people found lovable. His hair was a pale, dark brown color and was kept rather short, and he also had a somewhat thick beard. He had shaved it once, but when his fiancée saw him beardless, she half didn’t recognize him, and half demanded that he only trim from that point onward, never shave. As such, essentially, every month was No-Shave November for him. His nose was rather straight, and while that was something he was impartial about, his fiancée seemed to love it, as well as his thin eyebrows and his blue eyes, which were often described as “naturally welcoming” or “friendly”. “Who’s this nurse you’re talking about?” He inquired, expressing his curiosity further (with a touch of melodrama) by raising his left eyebrow. “I didn’t know we had a new one.”

            Molly shrugged. “I haven’t seen him myself. I heard he was a doctor two years ago, but he quit after his parents and best friend died, all within a month.”

            Bradley recoiled slightly and looked down at his mug. He hadn’t expected her to say something so depressing in response to what had been a casual question. “Geez.” He exclaimed, but made no further comments.

            “Yeah.” Molly lifted the bowl of leftover stir-fry she was holding. After putting a piece of chicken into her mouth, she talked as she chewed, saying, “God knows why he wanted to work _here_. If the system weren’t so broken right now—god _damn_ this chicken is good—I don’t think he would’ve even been considered. Y’know, the whole ‘was an actual medical doctor’ thing.”

            Bradley chuckled. After a beat, he asked, “Does this guy have a name?”

* * *

 

            He had carried his mug with him, and when he stopped in front of the nurse’s office, he took another sip of java. Then, he knocked on the door. He waited for thirty seconds, and then for another, before he knocked again, a little bit louder this time. There was still no answer, so he sighed. He was just about to turn away when the door was pulled open. Bradley then took his first long look at the new nurse.

            Most noticeable about the man, other than his height (he had to be at least 6’2”) and how slender he was, was his curly, dark brown hair. It almost seemed to have a mind of its own with how fluffy and wild it was, sticking out in any which direction. In his head, Bradley found himself comparing it to an angora rabbit, but he chose not to express his inner laughter at the similarity, lest he accidentally offend him.

            “Can I help you?” The former doctor near-interrogated. If Bradley didn’t know any better, he would’ve said the tone of his voice was quite bitter. It made sense, though, when he got a better look at the man’s face: he had a thick stubble around his lower face, and his brown eyes were half shut, surrounded by dark, bruise-colored rings. He looked like hell.

            “Hey.” Bradley opted to respond with his normal greeting, extending his left hand out toward the nurse. “Name’s Brad. Bradley Carlisle. Nice to meet you.”

            The tall man took his time in looking down at the offer of friendship, and he wasn’t any quicker in looking back up to meet Bradley’s eyes. The computer teacher merely stood in place, blinking, waiting for the near-stranger to either accept the handshake or close the door in his face. For him, awkwardness was something he brushed shoulders with in social interactions so often that he hardly even noticed it anymore. He would wait. After a few seconds of them just staring at each other, still Bradley did not move, but he did speak, hoping to coax the doctor into reacting in some way other than a staring contest. “What’s your name?”

            “Darcy.”

            “Do you have a last name?” It was a smartass question, but he asked it with a tone that suggested nothing but pure—yet friendly—formality, as was his way.

            Darcy let out a slightly frustrated breath, but it seemed he had a good bit of patience left in him. “ _Adair_ ,” He answered. “Now can I help you with something or not?”

            Bradley thought for a moment. “Well… Technically, no. Not really.”

            “Then please leave.” Darcy grumbled.

            Shut down, Bradley finally lowered his hand. Darcy then closed the door on him. They repeated “conversations” like this for the rest of the week, every lunch hour. For the first two days, Darcy grew increasingly annoyed, to the point where, on the 28th, he merely opened the door, poked out his head, barked “Don’t bother me anymore,” and shut the door. However, the following day, he resumed their previous pattern, and the day after that, he seemed calmer.

            On the following Monday, December 3rd, he opened the door with a defeated sigh. “Look,” he muttered, “do you _need_ something? If not, don’t—”

            “Yes.”

            The former doctor looked down only a bit, discovering the shorter man’s palm to be sliced open. He gasped when he saw the blood, and mumbled the words, “Holy shit,” under his breath before finally moving aside, allowing the computer teacher into his office. Bradley stepped inside casually, almost as if his cut hand didn’t bother him whatsoever, and Darcy closed the door. “What the hell happened?” He questioned as he stepped over to the teacher, grabbing his hand and looking at his bleeding palm.

            “Well,” Bradley tittered awkwardly, attempting to gauge Darcy’s reaction as he continued, “it’s a funny story involving a butter knife and a piece of toast.”

            “You cut yourself with a _butter knife?_ ” The doctor asked incredulously.

            “I’m a real klutz.”

            Darcy shook his head and grabbed a stool, putting it down beside Bradley. “Sit down,” he ordered before walking toward the cabinet, pulling it open to find what he’d need.

            As Bradley obeyed the ex-doctor’s order, he felt a little bad. In truth, it had not been with a butter knife that he cut himself. Really, he wasn’t even sure if it was at all possible to use a butter knife to cut flesh, at least not without something to sharpen it. It was just that he’d needed a way to get Darcy to do more than ignore him and shut the door in his face, and he had already, in his past, cut his palms way more than any reasonable human being ever should, so it had just sort of seemed like a good idea in the heat of the moment. On one hand, it _had_ got him into the nurse’s office, and he was now privy to the fact that Darcy felt more emotions than bitter scorn for everything and everyone, but on the other, he was dripping blood all over the floor, and the man probably thought he was insane or stupid—neither a claim of which he would feel too confident in arguing against. Really, he was just a stubborn guy; he didn’t take well to being rejected a proper introduction. Usually, he made friends with his peers easily, but Darcy had put up a challenge, and it wouldn’t have been like him not to bite.

            Darcy pulled out a medicine kit, putting in on a table near Bradley before turning to him. He again approached and looked down at his palm. “Here, stand up. You’re going to need to wash it off in the sink so I can see how deep it is.”

            “It’s not too deep.” He wasn’t sure if this was true, so he stood up and approached the nurse’s sink anyway. It stung to run the cut under warm water, but he sucked it up and grit his teeth. Once he could see where his flesh had been split, he held his hand up for the former doctor to look at.

            “That’s pretty bad.” Darcy admit. “You really did this with a butter knife?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Look, I… I mean, I don’t intend to sound overly cautious, but you might want to see a doctor about this.”

            “Well, you’re a doctor. That’s close enough, right?”

            “I’m not a doctor anymore,” Darcy grumbled while pouring alcohol onto a cotton swab. As he cleaned the cut, Bradley repeatedly twitched with every twinge of pain it caused him.

            “Why not?”

            “I quit.”

            “Why?”

            “You ask too many questions, Mr. Carlisle.”

            “Please, call me Bradley.” He offered through his teeth. “Or Brad. Whatever you prefer.”

            “Well, Bradley, I’m going to put this pad against your wound, and wrap it up with gauze.” The nurse announced. “Then you should go to the hospital.”

            “Can I ask you two more questions?” Bradley asked innocently.

            Darcy sighed. “Fine.”

            “You seem like a nice guy. Why are you so bitter?”

            The taller man shot Bradley a hard look. After a few seconds of only glaring, he finally answered the question. “I lost everyone.” He stated in a flat, vaguely-annoyed voice. “I never got to say goodbye to my parents, and my best friend died in my lap six hours before Christmas, on the first night of Hanukkah. Does that about cover it for you?”

            Bradley raised his eyebrows and pouted in mock thought, despite already having his answer. “Yeah, pretty much.”

            “And what was your other question?” Darcy hissed as he roughly wrapped the gauze around Bradley’s hand.

            “That _was_ my second question.”

            “What?”

            “My first question was if I could ask you two more questions. That way you couldn’t say it counted as the question.” Bradley realized he was ceasing to make sense when he noticed how Darcy was staring at him with his left eyebrow raised. “Sorry, I’m rambling. I’ll go now.”

* * *

 

            The final bell of the day rung, and with it, Bradley sat back. His students, all chattering as they went, left the room. Once he was alone, the computer teacher stood up and gathered his things. He was about ready to leave when he had a bothersome thought. Reluctantly, he opened the second lowest drawer on his desk. There was a medium-sized book in there at the bottom of a pile of papers, bound in black leather, and he pulled it out. He had no need to keep it there. If anyone ever found it, he would be in terrible trouble. It would ruin his reputation. So, he put it in the middle of the two binders he was carrying with him in order to hide it and its cover from anyone he might pass by on the way out.

            He then stepped out of his room, closing the door behind himself and making sure it was locked before beginning to walk quickly down the hall. He had just stepped into an intersection when he slammed into someone, dropping everything in his arms onto the floor. Papers scattered everywhere, and Bradley looked down.

            “Oh, shit,” murmured the person he’d clumsily walked into, “I’m sorry. Let me help you pick this up.”

            “Thanks.” Bradley remarked, already crouched down and picking things up. The rings on one of his binders had popped open—just his luck—and he was so focused on putting papers back onto them that he didn’t realize he was doing it alone until he saw that whoever had offered to help him was now standing up beside him. He recognized the long, slender legs to be those of Darcy Adair, so he quickly looked up; Darcy had picked up a few papers, but he had stood up to stare in shock at the other item he had picked up: Bradley’s little black book of dark magic.

            Panicked, Bradley leapt to his feet, looking up at Darcy with concern knit across his face. “That book isn’t anything.” He stammered a fake excuse as a piss-poor attempt to cover himself. “A student gave it to me as a joke.”

            “It’s no joke,” Darcy breathed, still gazing at the book. He had what could have been described as a look of wild hope for something forming in his eyes, but Bradley was still concerned that he was in a bad situation.

            “Look, I—I can explain.”

            “Can we talk? In my office?”

            Chewing nervously on the corner of his lip, knowing that he was screwed, Bradley cautiously asked, “About what?”

            With a serious yet pleading look in his brown eyes, Darcy finally looked at Bradley, and answered, “About my best friend.”


	12. Chapter 12

            He had a picture of Ansel in his pocket. It had been there since January of 2017. Since it was merely the corner of a piece of paper, onto which a picture taken with his phone had been printed for ease of access, it had faded somewhat due to how often Darcy would pull it out and hold it. He wouldn’t deny that, early on, he had taken to talking to the picture. He was just so lonely.

            The picture in question had been taken in October of 2016. Ansel’s hair was shorter and wilder than it had been when he died, and he had facial hair: a mustache, small soul patch, and a chin strap. He still remembered the backstory of the photo: Ansel had been trying to get an early start to No-Shave November. However, Darcy had off-handedly remarked that he liked Ansel better clean-shaven, so he agreed to shave only if Darcy agreed to take a picture of him. It was the only picture of Ansel he had anymore, having deleted the few others he had taken since they were too painful to look at, because he couldn’t bring himself to delete it. It had been the only picture of Ansel he had where the man wasn’t making some sort of funny-yet-unappealing face. He looked… content.

            Staring at the picture late in the afternoon on that day made his heart race with mixed emotions. It had been almost two years since Ansel died. He felt like it was his fault. He had been the one who missed the obvious and diagnosed the young man with mere insomnia. What he couldn’t understand was what had happened prior. He knew he had died. What had happened to bring him back unharmed? Why had Ansel’s health declined so rapidly? There was a bigger picture, and he was missing it.

            “Is that him?”

            The sound of Bradley Carlisle’s voice across the round table from him made him look up from the photo of his best friend. Bradley seemed like a nice guy, but clearly, he had some dark secrets. Sitting in front of the young teacher was his book of black magic rituals. When Darcy first saw the book less than half an hour earlier, an idea had struck him like a brick wall.

            Just two years earlier, Darcy didn’t believe in magic, or even in the supernatural. That was before Ansel’s prior best friend, a man named James Thorne (or just “Jay”), used black magic to summon a demon that posed as him before killing his parents. Ansel had been the one to stop the demon, after Darcy died. Somehow, that had brought him back. However, to return to the idea: upon seeing the book, it dawned on Darcy that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be alone. He could undo his mistakes.

            He could bring Ansel back from the dead.

            It was a crazy idea—absolutely insane—that much he knew. Yet, he didn’t care. He didn’t care that black magic had taken his parents from him, or that he was obviously about to play with fire. He just wanted his best friend back.

            “Darcy?” Bradley speaking again snapped him from his trance, and the former doctor shook his head to clear it.

            “Sorry. Yeah, this…” Darcy put the scrap of paper down on the table, turned it toward Bradley, and then pushed it toward the man. “This is him.”

            Bradley picked up the picture and examined it with his mouth in a firm line. After exhaling deeply from his nose, he reciprocated exactly what Darcy had just done for him, and clasped his hands in front of his mouth. He tapped his thumbs together quietly, watching Darcy pick the photo up, and after the nurse stuffed it into his pant pocket, finally the computer teacher began to talk. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking me to do.” He warned. “Necromancy is very shady. There are _many_ things we’d need to discuss before you go all gung-ho about bringing your friend back from beyond the grave, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the strings attached make you reconsider.”

            “I won’t reconsider.” Darcy declared. “I want to make things right. I’ll do whatever it takes to bring Ansel back.”

            Bradley shook his head. “I think you’ll find that bringing him back from the dead might not be ‘right’. In fact, many may call it ‘immoral’.”

            “Bradley,” the doctor pleaded, “Ansel didn’t deserve to die the way he did. He was too young. He was _single_ , for crying out loud. Twenty-seven years old, single and living with another bachelor. His life hadn’t even really started.” He ran his fingers through his messy hair, taking an uneasy breath and continuing, “And I think he died for me. Somehow, I killed him. I can’t live with that, man. I need to talk to him again. I need to see him _alive._ ”

            “How _did_ he die?” Bradley inquired. Then, realizing how insensitive he sounded, he stuttered, “I mean, if you’re okay with sharing that.”

            Darcy lowered his head. It was painful to look back on Ansel’s death, but he figured that Bradley deserved to know, especially if he was about to attempt to bring the insomniac back from the dead. “He… He was in the hospital. He was very sick. Fatal familial insomnia. Ever heard of that?”

            Bradley shook his head.

            “Neither had I. Turns out,” he did a hand gesture, frowning as he kept talking, “it’s really rare. It usually doesn’t kick in until the victim is about fifty years old, but Ansel was only twenty-seven. Like, just our luck, right?” He scoffed, but then pouted again. “It was killing him, and it was killing _me_ to see it killing him. Then he just… called me, on the night of the 24 th. Told me he’d checked out, and…” His eyes began to well up, but he struggled to keep going. “And that he knew he was staring his death in the face. He didn’t want to die in the hospital. He… He wanted to die _beside me._ And… _die beside me he did…_ ” He buried his face in his hand and took a deep breath. “I sat him down on the couch, and he laid his head on my lap, and… then he went to sleep, for the first time in four months, and he just… didn’t wake up.”

            Bradley let out a troubled sigh of his own. “Man,” he mourned, “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible.”

            Darcy managed to chuckle through his tears. “Tell me about it,” he responded.

            “It’s just, I want you to really—”

            “No. I don’t need the whole ‘black magic is bad’ spiel, okay? I _know_ what I’m asking you to do. I _know_ it’s _insane_ , but I _don’t—care._ Can you bring him back or not?”

            Defeated, Bradley rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ll need his corpse.”

            Darcy just stared at him for a long moment. “His… His what now?”

            “His body. I can’t bring his soul back into his body while his body’s six-feet under.”

            The doctor felt himself start to sweat. “His body isn’t six-feet under…” He mumbled. “I… had him cremated.”

            Bradley met his eye, and they did nothing but stare unblinkingly at each other for at least thirty seconds. The computer teacher said nothing, so Darcy took it upon himself to continue the discussion.

            “Is there another way?”

            He seemed really sarcastic about it, but Bradley did answer: “Uh, not without summoning a demon with him. I mean, without a body, I’m not left with a whole lot of _other_ options.”

            “So, what,” the former doctor began, “if you merge his soul or whatever with a demon, the demon can make him a new body and he can live?”

            “Pfft, if you want to call that ‘living’.” There was a beat of silence during which Bradley’s playful smirk soured into a deep frown. “Look, I—I was kidding, you know that, right?”

            “Is it possible? What you recommended?”

            “Um, sure! _Yeah_ , let me just call my buddy _Lucifer_.”

            “Is it possible?”

            The computer teacher huffed, “ _Maybe?_ I don’t know. I’m sure as heck not going to summon a demon, though. Do you have any idea how difficult black magic demons are to control?”

            “I have an idea,” Darcy thought, but he shook his head instead of admitting to what little he knew out loud.

            “If I did go through with that, there would be _so_ many more strings attached. There’s no guaranteeing that the result would even be entirely him. It would be part demon. Lord knows what it would do in your best friend’s skin.”

            “I only half follow.”

            “Imagine this,” the teacher started. “You’re sitting at home one day. You’ve got a nuclear family or something; you know, wife, kids, pet. All of the sudden, your body gets up against your will, and then you’re killing the family dog.”

            “Jesus!” Darcy recoiled in disgust. “Bradley!”

            “What I’m trying to say is that we’re walking a _really_ fine line here!” He argued. “Assuming we go through with this and it works, one second he’ll be your friend, and the next, he’ll be helplessly watching himself commit the most atrocious of sins!”

            “But that’s just a hypothesis,” Darcy noted anxiously.

            “It’s an _educated guess_. I could be wrong, but I could also be bang on. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

            Darcy looked at Bradley, determination carved into his thin face. “Yes,” he decided, “it is.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “I don’t think you understand just how much I’d risk to have him back.”

* * *

 

            For a moment, Bradley wondered what the hell he was doing. Darcy Adair was practically a stranger, and he knew even less about this “Ansel” fellow. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t use magic anymore, yet there he was, quietly gathering candles and chalk from a cabinet in the dining room that hadn’t been opened in forever.

            His fiancée was asleep in their bedroom upstairs. He had snuck out of the room quietly, and had taken his sweet time going down the stairs since they creaked. She would be absolutely _furious_ if she knew what he was doing, even if it _wasn’t_ for someone he’d only met a week prior. Yet, he found himself unable to refuse.

            Darcy seemed like a nice guy, deep down. He just hadn’t been able to cope with Ansel’s death. For some reason, he was the exception to Bradley’s rule. After all of the terrible things his use of black magic had caused in the past—all of the _grief_ —he wanted a way to make amends. He wanted to find a way to use it for something _good_. Whether or not it was possible, he was staring right at what might quite possibly be his only opportunity. If he could just find a way to bring Ansel back without putting anybody at risk, he felt like he could forgive himself for his past misdeeds. He would save someone’s life. Hell, two people’s lives.

            He couldn’t deny that he was terribly conflicted. Every fiber of his being told him not to do it. His instinct told him that trying to bring someone back from the dead would be the worst mistake of his life—otherwise _everyone_ would be doing it! Death would be unknown to society and immortality would reign. Because neither of those statements were currently true, he knew that he was probably about to screw everything up. But then, there was a part of his brain, the overly-confident part that didn’t often win in his inner arguments, which suggested that perhaps _he_ could find a way; some sort of loophole to find a way to make everything work out in his favor. There had to be a way… right? It was that line of thought that made him continue in what he knew to be a naïve endeavor. He just hoped that if things _had_ to go south, that they wouldn’t do so _catastrophically._

            There was a knock on the front door, so he quickly rushed over and yanked it open. Before him stood Darcy, who was holding a bundle of clothing under his arm, including (most notably) a zip-up purple hoodie. “I brought what you asked for.” The nurse told him quietly.

            Bradley nodded his head and brought his finger to his lips, gesturing for Darcy to be quiet. “Come on.” He whispered. “Down to the basement. We’ve got to be discreet. My fiancée will be pissed if she finds out what I’m doing.”

            Darcy followed him down into the basement. Bradley pulled the string above them to turn on the light, and then he put down the candles and chalk he’d brought. It had been a while since he’d done anything like this, so he grabbed the book from under his arm and began skimming through it until he found a picture of the ritual circle he had to draw. Then, he grabbed the chalk, beginning to sketch the image in white onto the floor. Darcy watched him anxiously, pulling the clothes he’d brought for Ansel closer to his chest.

            If everything worked out, he wouldn’t be alone anymore. He could have a second chance with Ansel. Though November 28th of 2016 had been one of the worst days of his life, there was no denying that it was the day during which he did the most bonding with his friend. It was a tragedy that it was also the beginning of the end. He wanted to have a chance to continue their friendship; to grow closer still with the amusing young man.

            Bradley stood up when he finished the circle. As he began lighting the candles and placing them around the circumference of the chalk outline, he asked Darcy, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

            “I’m here, aren’t I?” The former doctor replied.

            Soon, the two were sitting down, holding hands with each other. Bradley had told Darcy to close his eyes and think as hard as he could about Ansel, so the doctor did that. He thought long and hard about every moment they’d ever shared; about their first meeting, their stupid inside jokes, shopping together, their conversations… Ansel had given his life so much meaning, and he wanted it back.

            After about five minutes, Bradley started to chant, keeping his eyes shut. “I call to the spirits,” he announced, “I call to the dead to let us see Ansel Hunnisett again. I call to thee: come to us, and return to life once more.” He repeated this twice more before beginning to speak in Latin. Darcy didn’t know what he was saying, but he gave Bradley the benefit of the doubt and assumed he knew what he was doing. However, Bradley did not. In all honesty, he was confused. There was no demon he knew of that would bring anyone back in a physical form, and the resurrection spell only worked for brief spiritual meetings. So, he was stuck using an idea that he had to convince himself would work out well; he had no name to call, so he just had to reach out to as many demons as he could. It was risky, but perhaps he could find one that would be willing to help—and wouldn’t destroy humanity as a result. It didn’t help that his Latin was rusty. He tried to speak the equivalent of: “I beg the demons of the underworld to lend me their assistance. I beseech any who will listen. Please give this lost spirit a vessel to inhabit so he may live yet again,” but he wasn’t sure if he was making any sense. All he could hope was that he wasn’t accidentally saying something entirely different from what he meant, given that Latin was a language that relied heavily on metaphors and dual meanings.

            The computer teacher repeated the Latin twice, then the regular English summoning ritual twice, and then the Latin again. He did this over and over for what felt like an eternity before something finally started to happen. It got very cold in the basement, much colder than it had been before, and Darcy shivered. It felt like the floor was beginning to quiver beneath them, and that slight tremble soon turned into a full-fledged shaking. There was no stopping the ritual now. Bradley continued, beginning to shout his words.

            “I call to the spirits! I call to the dead to let us see Ansel Hunnisett again! I call to thee: come to us, and _return to life once more!_ ”

            The rumbling’s intensity spiked, and suddenly the basement’s only lightbulb exploded over their heads, earning a quick and startled shout from Darcy. Then, the candlesticks, their only remaining lights, were all blown out and knocked over by a heavy wind that suddenly pushed against them, and it was so strong that Darcy felt like he couldn’t breathe. Just as suddenly as everything happened, however, it stopped. Everything was quiet in the darkness around them, and, unable to see anything at all, Darcy just panted and clutched Bradley’s hands tighter.

            “Is it over?” The doctor asked.

            “It seems so,” Bradley answered.

            “Is Ansel back?”

            “I can’t see anything.”

            “Brad?” He could hear his wife-to-be calling his name all the way from upstairs. After he finally got a hold of himself, he hollered back up at her.

            “Yes?”

            “Brad,” she began in a scolding tone, “you didn’t summon a demon again, did you?”

            Bradley sighed nervously. “No, honey.” He called back.

            Darcy stared in the direction where Bradley’s voice was coming from. If he wasn’t so shaken by the ritual, he might have laughed at how casually the teacher’s fiancée asked if he’d summoned a demon, as if this was a common, everyday activity for them that they had merely agreed not to do anymore. However, it dawned on him that it was quite likely that the thought, albeit a joke, was the actual truth. Who carried around a book of dark magic if he didn’t use it often?

            The floorboards creaked far over their heads, the sound of his fiancée walking back toward their bedroom on the second floor, and with them, Bradley reached his hand forward in the darkness. There was definitely something in front of them. With his heart pounding nervously in his chest, he pulled out his lighter and struck a light. Cautiously, he held out his arm, bringing it closer to see what was lying before them.

            To his slight relief, it was human, at least; the naked body of a tall and somewhat stocky young man. He moved the light further up the chest, illuminating the unconscious man’s head. Darcy wasn’t sure what exactly he felt when Bradley’s lighter revealed Ansel’s face, exactly as it looked in the photograph he still had in his pocket. It was better than him looking like he had the last moment he’d been alive, since the former doctor knew he probably wouldn’t be able to handle seeing Ansel clean-shaven ever again without bursting into hysterics, but he found it a bit interesting that his friend had taken on the look of the only image Bradley had to go on.

            “You still have those clothes?” Bradley quietly asked him.

            “Yeah,” Darcy stammered.

            “Get him dressed and leave out the back door. She’ll kill me if she sees you.”

            Darcy nodded and got to it. It was awkward enough to have to dress Ansel, who was completely nude, while he was unconscious, but it didn’t help that there was no light. Not soon enough, Bradley found one of the knocked over candles and lit it, using it as a source of light for the nurse to work with. It took him a few minutes, but the doctor eventually decided he had done the best he could to dress his friend, and he tried to lift Ansel, but had difficulty.

            “What’s the matter?” Bradley.

            “I forgot that he weighs almost two-hundred twenty pounds,” Darcy choked. Carrying Ansel wasn’t exactly an easy option for him, since he was too weak, weighing only around one-hundred fifty pounds, so instead, he wrapped the man’s arm around his shoulders and managed to pull him up that way. Dragging him along would be difficult as well, but it was his only option.

            Bradley helped him carry Ansel up the stairs, and then led him to the back door, opening it for him. Along the way, he noticed that the candlestick he held was green, despite the fact that he could have sworn they were all white, but he ignored it, assuming he was just remembering wrong. “I’ll be at your office tomorrow at noon.” He told the doctor in a hushed rush. “Please be there. Bring him if he’s… you know, _himself_. If you don’t show, I’m going to assume something went wrong, and I’ll call the cops.”

            Darcy nodded. “Thank you,” he whimpered gratefully, “thank you _so much_.”

            “Just go. Be careful.” As Darcy was making his way into the backyard, he quietly shouted after him, “Don’t tell him he died!” Then, he was alone. Unconsciously, the teacher began chewing on his lower lip in mild distress. Despite his relief that the ritual seemed to have been successful, and the good feeling that flooded his system to see that he had made someone happy, something felt _off_ somehow. “I really hope I won’t regret this…” He fretted before closing the door and returning upstairs, all the while thinking about what excuse to tell his fiancée to account for the rumbling in the basement.


	13. Chapter 13

            He only had one bed, so he placed Ansel in it. It had been quite the trial for Darcy to carry his heavier friend up two sets of stairs to the second floor of the house—his father’s, passed down to him in his will alongside a decent amount of money—but it was something the former doctor did almost eagerly. Once he had him lying on his back comfortably, Darcy slumped to his knees beside the bed, watching his friend. He was very tired, but he fought away sleep.

            Ansel was back, and that was all that mattered to him. For a brief moment, he was happier than he’d been in two years, but then he started to think. He’d summoned a demon with Ansel; however, he had no idea _which_ demon, since Bradley never told him. All the teacher had said was to not tell Ansel that he was dead, if he decided to ignore the indirect warning that Ansel might be different, which he didn’t. Only then did he consider the potential consequences. What if he caused Ansel to suffer again? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

            The young man on the bed made a quiet noise in the back of his throat, like the beginning of an uncomfortable groan, and it brought Darcy’s full attention onto him immediately. The doctor just stared in stunned, hopeful silence as he watched Ansel’s dark brown eyes drift slowly open. He watched him look around before his eyes finally fell onto Darcy himself, and the insomniac smiled gently.

            “Darcy…”

            Darcy couldn’t help but lunge forward, pulling Ansel into a tight embrace. Still weak, the younger man was only able to reciprocate the embrace lightly. “Ansel, oh God, I’m… I’m so happy you’re…” He remembered Bradley’s warning and was more careful with his words, “You’re awake…!”

            “I was just resting my eyes, man…” Ansel chuckled.

            Darcy started to cry due to the sheer relief he felt. Ansel didn’t seem to understand why he was so emotional, but he said nothing of his confusion, simply continuing to carefully rub the former doctor’s back.

            “Hey, it’s okay, Peanut… I’m here.”

            “Is it really you?” Darcy sobbed.

            “Of course,” Ansel answered in a soft, comforting voice, “who else would I be?”

            It took a couple of minutes, but soon Darcy finally gained the strength to pull back from Ansel, who stood up and looked around a bit more. He could see that Ansel seemed noticeably confused, but he wasn’t able to figure out about what on his own. “What’s the matter?” He asked.

            “This isn’t our bedroom,” Ansel observed. “Where are we?” Then he looked back at the bed. “Whose bed is this, Darc?”

            Darcy tittered nervously. It would be hard to explain everything to Ansel without telling him about his death. “It’s mine. This is my bedroom.”

            Ansel shook his head. “No.”

            “We’re in my old house. The one I shared with my dad.”

            “When did this happen?”

            “Well, about a week after… _y’know_ , they read my dad’s will. He left me the house and some money.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            Darcy’s brows furrowed. “What do you remember, Ansel?”

            Ansel had to think about that.

            “Do you remember _anything?_ ”

            “Yeah!” He blurted defensively. “Yeah, I remember…” He seemed lost. “Um…” Then something hit him. “ _Oh._ You were talking about Monday?”

            “Monday?” Darcy asked.

            “The Monday after your dad. The Monday when everything…” He did a hand gesture, suggesting that he wanted Darcy to continue.

            “Oh, yeah. That was a Monday, wasn’t it?” The doctor laughed. “I’d forgotten about that…”

            “You forgot about Monday? I mean, I guess it’s not like that was the biggest day of our lives or anything.”

            “I didn’t mean it like that. I just forgot that it was on a Monday.”

            Ansel chuckled for a moment before stopping abruptly. He reached up and felt his mustache with his fingers, which made Darcy tense up. “Uh…” The young man pulled his hand back and pointed up at his face. “I’ve got my facial hair back.”

            “Yeah…”

            “But I shaved.”

            “Do you know what day it is today?”

            “December 25th, 2016.” Ansel answered confidently. “Sunday.”

            Darcy felt a bead of sweat run down the side of his face. He didn’t say anything, unsure if he should correct Ansel or not.

            “Right?”

            Darcy lowered his head.

            Ansel shrugged and idly fiddled with his pants, uncomfortably trying to adjust them, since Darcy had a bit of difficulty dressing him in the dark and all. “I think my briefs are backwards,” he quipped. “I musta been pretty out of it yesterday.”

            “Ansel?”

            Ansel looked up at him, his expression casual and friendly. “Yep?”

            The former doctor took an uneasy sigh. “We, uh… We need to talk.”

            “Uh, sure…” Ansel’s warm smile faded. “’Bout what?”

            “What else do you remember? About… About everything leading up to ‘yesterday’?”

            The young man averted his eyes. “Well, I remember that Jay’s dead. And you…”

            “Yes?” Darcy coaxed.

            “You… You died. In my arms.” He shook his head. “I guess I never told you, huh? Sorry about that. It just… it really messed with me, y’know? I saw the life fade from your eyes. You… stopped breathing on my lap.”

            Darcy, too, looked away. Ansel had no idea how much what he was saying was reverberating within the doctor, reminding him of how the insomniac himself had died. It almost sounded identical.

            “I don’t really remember anything after that until the hospital.” Ansel continued. “You were alive again. Dunno how, but I’m glad.”

            “What else?”

            “You cried. A lot. I…” The young man appeared to space out, and his voice lost a certain degree of emotion, as if he was finally starting to remember his final days alive. “I was dying. You apologized to me, told me that we ‘were supposed to have a happy ending’… and I told you not to cry.”

            Darcy shuddered and tried to smile despite the tears beginning to well up in his eyes. “Yeah, I still remember that…”

            “You didn’t come back after that. So I checked myself out on the first night of Hanukkah, paid twenty dollars for jelly donuts—” he laughed, “—for _five_ dollar donuts; I feel ripped off—and then I walked home. You came downstairs when I called, we took the elevator, and then I went to sleep on your lap.” He paused for a second. “Then I woke up here.”

            “That’s all you remember?”

            “Yeah.” Ansel replied. “Why, did I miss something?”

            There was really only one choice. He couldn’t hide the date from Ansel forever. So, with a shaky breath, Darcy began lying through his teeth. “You’ve been in… this sort of _comatose_ state… off and on, for two years.”

            Ansel just stared at him.

            “Some days you’d be awake, but not enough to really, y’know, recognize me. I was so worried about you, Ansel.”

            Nervously, Ansel started to laugh, stammering, “Funny joke, Darc, but I think I’d know if I was half-asleep for two years.”

            “I’m not kidding. Check your phone. It’s still in your pocket.”

            Ansel hesitantly reached into his pocket. “I really don’t know what you hope…” He trailed off when he tried to turn on his phone. “Battery’s dead.”

            “Right. Here.” Darcy pulled his own phone from his pocket and turned it on, but didn’t unlock it. With the time and date visible—1:03 AM, December 4th, 2018—he turned the screen toward Ansel, who gazed at it quietly for several seconds. “It’s been two years. I’ve… I’ve been waiting for you this whole time.”

            “No, you…” Ansel vacantly shook his head. “You wouldn’t… You wouldn’t’ve. You would’ve… You should’ve moved on.”

            “And left you behind?” Darcy put his hand on Ansel’s shoulder, his thumb gently placed against the younger man’s neck. “Ansel, you mean more to me than anyone else in the whole world. No way I’d leave without you… Not in a million years.”

            The slightly shorter man smiled, but wasn’t sure how to respond, so he changed the subject. “So it’s really been two years, huh? I’m alive?”

            Darcy nodded. “Yeah, Ansel. You’re alive.”

            “What have I missed?”

            The former doctor chuckled and lowered his head. “I’ll explain everything in the morning, I promise. I’m very tired.”

            “Heh, same. Which is kind of odd, since I’ve been asleep for two years.”

            Darcy managed a genuine smile. He had forgotten what it felt like to be happy.

            The two of them stood in front of each other awkwardly for a few seconds, neither wanting to be the first to step back, but Darcy took one for the team and stepped over to a chair in the corner of the room, sitting down on it. Ansel gave him a vaguely concerned look as he got comfortable.

            “Wait,” he stated, “this is your bed.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Well, shouldn’t you sleep in it?”

            “Err, I mean, it’s technically _your_ bed now. You’ve been sleeping here.”

            “Don’t you have another bed? This is your dad’s house, right? So why not his bed?”

            “I don’t go in there.”

            Ansel frowned. “You don’t seriously sleep on that chair, do you?”

            He didn’t, but he didn’t want to sleep in a room without Ansel. “I do.”

            “Dude,” the younger man whined, “no! Man, I wish I’d been awake just to talk you out of that! There’s a couch, right? I’ll sleep on that.”

            “No way. You need to rest comfortably.”

            “Peanut, you look like Hell. If anyone needs a comfortable rest, it’s you.”

            “I’m fine.”

            Ansel sighed and held up his arms in surrender. “Fine,” he succumbed, “sleep in that chair, but if you’re not leaving this room, then I’m gonna say it: this bed’s pretty big.” He pulled the blanket back and sat down on the mattress, not looking at Darcy as he continued to talk. “Now, if you’re too much of a pussy to sleep beside me, so be it. But I’m just sayin’: if you were to climb in beside me; I don’t care.” He laid down on his side, pulling the covers over himself, and then he stubbornly concluded, “G’night, Peanut.”

            Darcy sat in silence for a few minutes. He wasn’t sure how to react to Ansel’s offer, or whether or not it was a joke. Still, it would be better than trying to fall asleep on the chair… but he was nervous. He’d never slept beside anyone before. He was close with Ansel, but he wasn’t sure if they were “ _sleeping in the same bed_ ” close. So, he tried his own idea of sleeping in the chair. After twenty minutes, he had achieved nothing other than a sore back, so he sat up and huffed.

            Ansel seemed to be asleep. With a nervous gulp, the former doctor quietly stood up from the chair and approached the bed. Gingerly, he lifted the covers, slipping in beside his friend. The bed felt warm, but he couldn’t tell if it actually was, or if his body was just burning from the embarrassment of lying beside another man—despite that other man being his best friend. However, he felt sleep beginning to overcome him regardless, and he glanced over at the back of Ansel’s head before turning over onto his side—his back to Ansel’s—and closing his eyes.

            “Goodnight, Poppet…”

* * *

 

            Suddenly, he was running down a street. It was dark and snowy outside, and he was running past houses with beautiful lights, but he didn’t—couldn’t—slow down. Something was chasing him. He needed to get away. It felt like he was running in slow motion, and though he tried to run faster, he could feel his pursuer gaining on him.

            The former doctor dashed into a park, beginning to trudge through snow while trying to keep his speed. He could hear laughter not just behind him, but all around him, and he wondered for a moment if he was surrounded, or if he was just imagining the other voices. Whatever the case, he kept running. Trees bent unnaturally as he passed them. Panic began to flood his system. Everything felt wrong, and it terrified him.

            “ _Ansel!!_ ” He screamed out for his friend in terror before he tripped in the snow, falling forward into the cold white. For a long moment, he laid there. Everything was quiet around him. He thought that maybe it was over; safe.

            “ **Darcy.** ” There was someone standing behind him that sounded like Ansel, but at the same time, somehow didn’t. Either way, the way they said his name sent an extra chill down his spine. He didn’t want to get up, but then he was grabbed by the nape of his neck and ripped up to his feet, where he was turned to see the person that was talking to him; it was Ansel, but his eyes, whites and all, were glowing a scarlet red. He snarled at him, but Darcy only saw a glimpse of him…

            “Where do you keep the razors and shaving cream?”

            … and then he was awake, staring up at the ceiling. After a second, he turned his head, looking toward the door to his left. Ansel was standing in the doorway, looking down at him a tad impatiently. Though he’d just been asleep, the nurse hardly felt rested.

            “What?” He asked back, not having understood Ansel’s question since it had jolted him from his sleep.

            “Razors and shaving cream. I know you don’t like this facial hair I’ve got going.”

            Darcy sat up, shaking his head in protest. “No,” he replied, “you should keep it. It’s grown on me.”

            Ansel smiled; he had always liked having facial hair, but shaved it only for Darcy’s satisfaction. “You sure it doesn’t bother you?”

            “It’s fine. It suits you.”

            “Glad to see we’re finally seeing eye-to-eye on this,” remarked Ansel.

            Darcy scratched his head and groaned. “What time is it?”

            Ansel shrugged. “Dunno.”

            “You still have my phone. I think.”

            “Oops.” Ansel pulled Darcy’s phone from his pocket and tossed it at the former doctor, who failed to catch it. He picked it up from his lap and checked the time: 10:42 AM.

            “Shit!” He threw the blankets aside and leapt to his feet, grabbing his coat from the chair. All the while, Ansel stared at him.

            “What’s the matter?”

            “I need to be at work!”

            “But you promised you’d explain everything to me.” The younger man crossed his arms and pouted in jest.

            “Come with me.” Darcy demanded.

            Ansel lowered his arms. “You know I hate that hospital, Darc.”

            “I don’t work at the hospital anymore.”

            “What? Since when?”

            “Since two years ago. I’m not technically a doctor anymore. I stepped back.”

            “Why?”

            Darcy lowered his head in shame. “Because I failed you.” He admit quietly.

            “Darcy…” Ansel frowned. “You didn’t fail me.”

            Darcy looked up at his friend, beginning to hear what he hadn’t entirely realized he _needed_ to hear.

            “You did the best you could. I mean, I’m alive, aren’t I? It’s not like your mistake actually cost me my life or anything.”

            “But—!” The nurse caught himself and sighed.

            “I don’t know what _you_ think, Darc, but I don’t hold anything against you.”

            Darcy really wanted to accept those words, but those were the words of a man who was unaware that the misdiagnosis had been his literal death. Conflicted and not quite as satisfied as he wished he could have been, the doctor massaged his forehead with his fingers. “Thanks, Ansel.” He remarked anyway, since he at least appreciated the sentiment. “That means a lot to me.”

            Ansel paused for a beat with a gentle smile before asking, “So, where do you work now, then?”

            “A local high school.” He told him. “I’m a nurse there. Look, we’re really late. I’ll explain on the way there.”

            The younger man shrugged. “Well, I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

            “Are you feeling alright?”

            “Yeah. Better than ever, in fact.” Ansel answered honestly. “Why?”

            “No reason, really.”

            “Are _you_ alright? You seem a bit shaken.”

            “I just had a weird nightmare. I’m good.”

            “You sure?”

            “Yeah.”

* * *

 

            It was so surreal to have Ansel sitting in the passenger seat again. Just the day before, the man had been nothing but a memory, but now here he was, back as if nothing had ever happened. Honestly, it was tripping Darcy out; at least four times already he could’ve sworn he saw things in the corners of his eyes that weren’t there. It was extra dismaying for him that only half of him was pleased to have Ansel back. The other half was terrified. He had just indirectly helped raise a man from the dead, after all, but he wanted to be happy. He wanted to be done with fear and uncertainty, but he felt those two emotions almost stronger than before. Everything felt like the way it used to be, but something felt wrong. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was, though.

            Ansel didn’t seem any different, besides the fact that he was two months younger than he’d been when he died. The thought that perhaps he really had died hadn’t occurred to him yet. How could it? If he had died, he had no reason to think that black magic had anything to do with him getting a second chance at life.

            Perhaps, the doctor hoped, it was merely the fear that Ansel would find out the truth sooner or later that bothered him so. He knew that it would be impossible to keep Ansel in the dark about what really happened that first night of Hanukkah two years prior forever. He just wasn’t sure why it was important that Ansel not find out. What had Bradley meant by his warning? If Ansel found out he had been brought back from the dead, what was the worst that could possibly happen? Regardless, he didn’t want to test fate, so he decided to just keep lying.

            “So,” Ansel broke the ice, “two years, huh?”

            “Yep.” Darcy replied. “Loneliest two years of my life, to be honest…”

            “Man, I’m sorry. I wish I remembered more of it.” Then, in an uncomfortable tone, he asked, “Could you turn off the radio?”

            Darcy immediately furrowed his brows and glanced at Ansel. “Radio? What radio?”

            “Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Ansel anxiously giggled. “Your dash doesn’t have one.”

            Darcy gave his friend a long, concerned look. Ansel noticed, looking back at him with a worried expression of his own.

            “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy.”

            “What did you mean?”

            “I just wanted you to turn off the radio.”

            “There isn’t a radio.”

            “I know that now.”

            “So what did you mean?”

            “I dunno!” The former insomniac laughed awkwardly, “I just… I could’ve _sworn_ I heard some asshole talking about something I wasn’t interested in listening to. Man, I must be losing my mind.” He said the last sentence as a joke to make his confession a little bit less frightening, but it hardly lightened the blow for Darcy.

            “Dude, really, are you okay?” He inquired. “Do you feel like yourself?”

            “Yeah, Darcy, I’m fine.” Ansel insisted. “Like I said, I’ve never felt better.”

            “Well, I mean, you just told me you were hearing a disembodied voice that I couldn’t hear, so I think you’re kind of contradicting yourself.”

            “Nah, I’m sure it’s nothing. I was just in a coma for two years. Weird shit’s bound to happen, right?”

            The excuse did very little to ease Darcy, but he let it slide. He wanted to pretend that everything was and would be okay, and if Ansel wanted that too, he would be fine with that. So, when some part of him began screaming that he had made a mistake bringing Ansel back, he shut that part out of his mind and ignored his instincts, choosing instead to believe wholeheartedly that Ansel was fine; that _everything_ would be just fine.

            “Why did you want me to come with you, anyway?” Ansel finally asked.

            “There’s someone who wants to see you,” answered Darcy, with a forced smile of denial stretched across his thin face.

            Everything would be fine… he hoped.


	14. Chapter 14

            At noon, Bradley Carlisle went downstairs to Darcy’s office. He felt clammy and nervous, and found himself panicking at the thought that something bad might have happened and that Darcy wouldn’t be there. Reluctantly, he knocked on the door. Immediate relief washed over him when the door was pulled open by the doctor-turned-nurse, who stepped aside to let him in. Sitting on the stool deeper into the room was Ansel, who was mumbling something about some sort of radio.

            “What kind of car doesn’t have a radio?” He grumbled to himself.

            Bradley ignored him and looked up at Darcy, who had just closed the door. “How is he?” The computer teacher asked.

            Darcy smiled. He looked worn out. “He’s fine.” The doctor replied. “I’m so glad to have him back. Thank you.”

            “Don’t thank me just yet,” Bradley muttered as he glanced again at Darcy’s friend. As he sat, Ansel bobbed his leg and fiddled with the sleeves of his purple hoodie, twisting and untwisting the fabric around his fingers indiscreetly. “Has anything… _out of the ordinary_ been happening?”

            Darcy shook his head, but then said, “He said he heard someone saying something in the car. I didn’t hear it.”

            “Did he say anything about the voice or what it said?”

            “No. I don’t think he was paying any attention to it, but he asked for me to turn the radio off.”

            “Oh?”

            “My car doesn’t have a radio.”

            “Oh.”

            “Darc,” Ansel spoke up, “you gonna introduce me to this guy, or are you two just gonna keep whispering by the door?”

            “Sorry.” Darcy stepped closer, and Bradley followed. “Ansel, this is Bradley Carlisle. He’s…”

            “I’m the computer teacher here.” Bradley extended his hand for a handshake, which Ansel accepted rather hesitantly.

            “Nice to meet you, I guess. Do you know who I am?”

            “Vaguely,” Bradley admit.

            “Have we met before?”

            “Not really.”

            Ansel shook his head. “Huh. I feel like we’ve met.”

            Bradley glanced at Darcy, who stepped further forward.

            “He stopped by every so often to help me take care of you over the past two years.” The doctor covered for him.

            “Uh, yeah.”

            “Have you seen me naked?” Ansel jokingly asked.

            “Yes, actually.”

            Ansel blushed and frowned. “Not even Darcy’s seen my dick.”

            “Well, I mean, I have.” Darcy quietly revealed.

            The former insomniac’s face reddened a bit more.

            “I wasn’t looking! I just kind of… saw it.”

            “Just… stop talking.”

            “Okay.” The nurse turned to Bradley. “Can I talk to you?”

            “Sure.” The teacher responded.

            “Outside?”

            “Let’s go.”

            Darcy looked back at Ansel. “Stay here.” After Ansel shrugged, he and Bradley left the room.

            Now alone, the former insomniac looked around the room. He knew Darcy to be kind of a clean freak, so he expected the room to be nice and orderly, but surprisingly, things looked somewhat disarranged, like he didn’t care. He couldn’t picture his friend ignoring a mess, so he was left a little bit concerned. “Man… How much did my coma or whatever affect him?”

            “ **Quite a lot.** ”

            He whipped his head around at the sound of a voice answering his rhetorical question, but saw no one. “Who’s there?”

            No answer.

            Ansel felt a chill run up his spine. The voice had sounded like him, but at the same time, hadn’t. It was hard to describe, and he was made nervous by the fact that it was apparently in his head. So, he stood up. There had to be someone in there. “Come on out.” He insisted. “If I find you before you show yourself, I’m gonna beat your ass.”

            Still, nothing. Undeterred, he crouched to look under the bed in the room, and when he found nothing there, he walked across the room to a little nook; no one was there either. He jumped when there was a knock on the door, and he stood in place in stunned silence. After a few quiet seconds, there was another knock, and then a woman’s voice called into the room.

            “Nurse Adair?” The stranger with a pretty voice asked. “Are you in there? I’ve got a sick student here.”

            Though he wasn’t entirely sure if he should, Ansel nervously cleared his throat and replied, “Bring him in.”

            The door opened, and as he heard two sets of footsteps—one wearing heels, which was a pleasant sound to his ears—enter the room, he turned, only to immediately freeze.

            Standing before him, helping a young man into the room, was the most beautiful woman Ansel had ever seen. His eyes widened to take in more of her delicate features, and he forgot how to breathe for a moment. Her hair was waist-length, long and black, shining like silk, and her eyebrows were arched in a way that made his heart race. She wasn’t skinny, but she wasn’t overweight. She was wearing a red V-neck shirt with half-sleeves, and tight black pants that showed off her gorgeous thighs. Ansel stared at her as she helped the ill student sit down on the bed, and when she finally looked up at him, meeting his eyes, he couldn’t help but immediately look down at his own shoes.

            “So you’re Nurse Adair, huh?” She asked him. “Funny, I expected someone different.”

            “How so?” Ansel played along, curious as to her thoughts, though he didn’t look back up at her.

            “I didn’t expect my co-workers to be right about you being handsome.” She flirted with a casual giggle.

            Ansel flushed and laughed. “Well, uh… I have a confession.”

            She gave him an intrigued look when he finally looked up at her.

            “I’m not Dr. Adair.” He admit nervously. “He just stepped out less than a minute ago.”

            “Oh.” The woman looked him over. “Well, you don’t look young enough to be a student.”

            “I’m a friend. Name’s Ansel, Ansel Hunnisett.”

            “What an odd name.” She teased with a smile, and somehow that only made Ansel fall for her more.

            “Heh, yeah…”

            She stepped closer, extending her hand for a handshake. “I’m Molly Barton. I teach mathematics here. Nice to meet you, Ansel.”

            With his heart in his stomach, Ansel shook Molly’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too, Molly…”

* * *

 

            “What is it?” Bradley asked Darcy once they were standing outside. It was cold, but the teacher usually took his dark brown coat with him whenever he left his room, so he was fine.

            “Why can’t I tell Ansel that he was dead?” The doctor questioned. “I feel bad lying to him. I don’t know how much longer I can keep him convinced that he was only half-conscious for _two years_.”

            Bradley sighed. “I think it’s better if you don’t know. Just trust me.”

            “I deserve to know!”

            “Darcy, I gave you Ansel back.”

            Darcy chewed on his own lip. “Okay, I don’t deserve it. But I _need_ to know. Please. What will happen if I just tell him the truth?”

            “Something terrible.”

            “Like what?”

            The computer teacher, defeated, huffed before finally giving in. “I summoned a demon with him. The fact that his spirit is strong enough to hold itself together is in part due to the fact that he _thinks_ he’s _still alive._ If he knew he was dead, the demon would surely take over. He would lose himself. Ansel would be pushed to the sidelines to watch his new body do the demon’s bidding.” He paused for a second, examine Darcy’s horrified expression. “And that’s not just an educated guess. I _know_. From _experience._ ”

            “What,” the nurse stammered quietly, “you mean you’ve done this before?”

            “Yes.” Bradley lowered his head in shame. “My fiancée had a son. She was a teenaged mother with some jock. Of course, he didn’t stay.”

            Darcy paid attention, not just out of respect, but due to a genuine interest.

            “The kid died when he was six, before I knew her. I met her the following year. She was so lost without him, so… I figured that maybe I could help. I tried to resurrect her son.” His face paled. “We made the mistake of telling him everything after a few days.”

            “Then what happened?” Darcy asked, albeit hesitantly.

            “She and I were off-limits, but… people we loved… horrible things happened to them. In the end, I had to undo the ritual.”

            “Meaning…?”

            “I had to exorcise her son. I… I had to send him to Hell.”

            “Oh my…”

            “I don’t know why she stayed with me. I mean, I damned her son to the fiery pits below. _I_ would’ve left me if I was in her position, but… I guess she saw that I had good intentions, because for some reason, she stayed…” He shook his head, changing the subject. “But that was only with _minor_ help from the underworld. Her son still had a body. Ansel’s body was made _by_ a demon. He doesn’t know it, but his spirit is going to forever be fighting for control. He’s got a good wall of defense, believing that he’s completely normal, but if he finds out he died, I can only imagine the horrors that will ensue…”

            “If you’re so worried about this… If this is so _risky_ ,” the former doctor inquired, “then why did you bring him back?”

            “I need to know if it was possible to keep her son with us. If it was my fault, or if it was destined to happen.” The teacher looked down. “I’m just hoping that you can make it right. I want to prove to myself that I can use this magic for good; to make someone happy.” He looked up at Darcy, meeting his eye, and begged, “Please don’t make the same mistake my fiancée and I did. Ansel might still have a chance.”

            Darcy nodded slowly. If he had to lie to keep Ansel with him, he would. He would do _anything_ to stay with him. More or less done with their conversation, the two of them then walked back inside, heading toward Darcy’s office.

            “Hey, uh,” the doctor quietly began, “I just wanted to thank you again. You didn’t have any reason to help me like you did. I’m forever in your debt.”

            “Again,” the teacher warned in a low, concerned voice, “don’t say that just yet. If things don’t work out, I might have just ruined your life. You don’t look like you’ll be able to handle losing him again.”

            Darcy said nothing, finding the claim to be valid; he’d only just got Ansel back. If he ever had to risk losing him again, it would not be without him likely taking his own life as well. “Do you think it would be possible for us to be friends?” He asked suddenly.

            Bradley looked at him. “What, you and I? I’m not sure.”

            “Well, I’d like to be.” The doctor chuckled solemnly. “Since Ansel, I… I kind of cut what few friends I had left out of my life.”

            The computer teacher shrugged and said, “I guess we could try.”

            “Great.”

            When they finally reached the office, Darcy opened the door, and was surprised to see not only a student lying down on the bed, but a woman talking to Ansel. After a few seconds, the young man noticed Darcy and began to speak.

            “Oh, there’s the man of the hour.” He greeted, causing the woman to turn around and look at him.

            “Who are you?” The nurse asked.

            Bradley stepped further in and recognized her, but didn’t speak, allowing her to introduce herself.

            “I’m Molly Barton. I teach mathematics here.” She told him with a little wave, not remarking on Bradley’s presence. “You must be Nurse Adair?”

            “Yeah.” Darcy answered. Behind Molly, he watched Ansel do a serious of excited, mute gestures, including a heart shape with his hands and what looked to be him mouthing the words “ _I LIKE HER_ ”.

            The math teacher chuckled anxiously after an awkward silence, brushing her hair behind her ear. “You were out, and this student was complaining of stomach cramps, so your friend here let us in.” She explained.

            “That’s fine.” Darcy quickly countered. “I’m not upset or anything.”

            “Oh. It just sorta looked like you were bothered for a second there.”

            “No, it, uh…”

            Noticing that the former doctor was staring past her, she looked over her shoulder at Ansel, who quickly stopped his ecstatic flailing before he was in her line of sight, but did proceed to wave at her with a tiny and adorable smile before she turned her head back to Darcy, at which point he smiled wider at his friend. The nurse had never seen the young man so love-struck, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to react other than with a tiny smile of his own.

            “It’s alright, really.” Darcy finally finished. He went over to the student on the bed, and as he did, Molly turned to Ansel.

            “I’d love to get your number.” She said coyly.

            Ansel was about to speak, but Darcy remembered that Ansel’s number had probably been recycled already, since he had been dead and Darcy hadn’t had the forethought to _not_ close the account.

            “Uh, you know what?” The nurse blurted, cutting his friend off before he could even get a syllable past his lips. “Why don’t you just write your number down for him? His phone’s dead.”

            The woman looked at him quietly for a few seconds, trying to wrap her head around what he was saying, and as she did, Ansel shot him a glare.

            “Uh, sure.” Molly agreed after a beat or two. “Can I have some paper, then?”

            “Absolutely.” Darcy ignored Ansel’s hard stare and quickly searched around through the mess on his desk until he found a pad of paper and a pen. He handed them both to Molly before stepping back to the student’s side.

            Molly wrote down her number and handed the items to Ansel, who nodded at her. “I have students waiting in my classroom.” She told him. “Call me sometime, will you?”

            “For sure.” Ansel stammered, grinning again.

            The math teacher waved at him and headed for the door. As she opened it, she glanced at Bradley. “Hey, Brad.” She greeted.

            “Hey.” Bradley responded meekly.

            The second Molly was out of the room, Ansel approached Darcy, frowning. “Dude,” he complained, “what was that all about? You made yourself look like a bit of an ass.”

            “I know, but you were going to give her somebody else’s number if I didn’t.” The nurse admit.

            “What do you mean? I think I know my own number.”

            “You were nearly comatose. I… kinda had your account closed.”

            “Darc!”

            “Well, I didn’t see a point in leaving it open if you weren’t around to use the number!”

            Ansel crossed his arms and frowned, but didn’t argue, since he understood Darcy’s point. However, being a stubborn Capricorn, he did not admit that he knew Darcy was in the right; instead, he just kept frowning, looking off at the wall above him.

            “I’m sorry. I’ll get you a new number and pay the bills for a few months for you.”

            Ansel only grunted.

            “Alright?”

            Nothing.

            “Ansel?”

            “Fine.” The response was a quiet mumble that got a laugh from Darcy.

            Bradley found it interesting to watch the chemistry between Darcy and Ansel. If he didn’t know any better, he might have thought they were brothers, but at the same time, there was a strange intimacy that he could sense between them that was more than that of sibling-like closeness. Though he couldn’t necessarily describe it as “sexual tension”, he figured that perhaps the term “romantic tension” might be the closest he could get. However, neither of them seemed gay, and Ansel was noticeably attracted to Molly, so he was left uncertain as to what to dub the connection he saw between them. Realizing that the two men had completely forgotten that he was even in the room, he cleared his throat, which prompted them both to look over at him. “I should get going too,” he told them, though he didn’t have to.

            “Uh, wait,” Darcy got up, pulling his phone from his pocket and walking over to him. “Would it be too much to ask if we could exchange numbers? That way we don’t have to keep arranging meetings in person.”

            “Sure, I guess.” Bradley replied.

            Ansel watched Darcy type in Bradley’s number with his arms still crossed over his chest, but wasn’t really paying attention. He was too busy thinking about how he still wasn’t dreaming, but he _had_ slept, and how that alone was new to him since he hadn’t actually been able to sleep since he was nineteen.

            “Thanks. See you later.”

            The young man didn’t tune back in to reality until he heard the door close, and suddenly he was alone with Darcy if one chose to ignore the resting student on the bed behind him. As Darcy stepped forward, he noticed how exhausted and worn out the doctor seemed, and he felt his brows furrow a bit. “Darc,” he asked, “you feelin’ alright?”

            “Yeah.” Darcy replied. “I’m a little tired, that’s all…”

            “You seem more than a _little_ ,” Ansel pointed out as his slightly-taller friend sat down on the stool.

            “It’s nothing,” Darcy assured him, though he wasn’t entirely sure himself as to why he was so drained.

* * *

 

            When Bradley got home that evening, everything seemed normal. He hadn’t had too bad of a day. Ansel seemed normal, much to his relief. Maybe he _had_ done the right thing. After stepping inside, he closed the front door, locking it before taking his coat off and putting his keys into one of its pockets. He hung the coat in the closet to his left, then took off his boots. Once he was stripped of his winter wear, he stepped into the kitchen. Usually, his fiancée was in the living room reading at this hour, but she wasn’t today, which he attributed to that fact that she had remarked about being unusually tired that morning.

            He shrugged it off and poured himself a glass of juice. As he drank it, he heard someone upstairs, so when he swallowed, he raised his head. “Sofie?” He called, short for “Sofia”.

            There was no response, so he returned to his drink and started to walk toward the living room. He dropped the glass when he heard his fiancée start screaming upstairs. Before it even hit the ground, shattering when it did, he was already running for the stairs. “Sofia?!” He shouted.

            “Bradley!!”

            The sounds led him to the upstairs bathroom, where he could hear Sophia screaming and throwing things around. He tried to open the door, but it was locked, so he started pounding on it. “Sofia, open the door!!”

            The door flew open, and Sofia came careening out, falling into Bradley’s arms. Hysterical, she pushed past him, hiding behind him as she pointed wildly into the bathroom. “It’s him!” She screamed. “He’s trying to hurt me!”

            Bradley looked into the bathroom. The room was destroyed, but no one was in there. “I don’t see anyone!”

            “He’s right there!”

            “Who?!”

            “My son!!”


	15. Chapter 15

            He couldn’t explain why he was so exhausted. Sitting downstairs on the couch, Darcy tried to rest his eyes, but to no avail. He kept seeing his short nightmare on loop, as if it was plastered to his eyelids, so, defeated, he opened his eyes with a frustrated moan. There was no point in continuing trying to sleep down there, so he got up and walked upstairs. He could hear someone rustling through the bedroom closet, so he reluctantly opened the door, stepping inside. Ansel was there, his shirt and hoodie lying on the bed, leaving him shirtless as he dug through the hanging articles of clothing. For a long moment, Darcy just watched him, before finally clearing his throat.

            “What are you doing?” He questioned.

            Ansel glanced back at him. “Where are all of my clothes? I don’t really want to wear this hoodie for the rest of my life.”

            Darcy sat down on the edge of the bed, his back now to Ansel. “You can wear some of mine.” He responded. He didn’t want to answer that question, since it would again make him seem like an ass if it didn’t reveal dead-on that Ansel had died.

            Ansel made a noise in the back of his throat that was only half-accepting of that response, and then he took something from the closet and began putting it on. Luckily, Darcy usually purchased clothing that was much too big for him (except for pants, which he preferred to be tight), so Ansel would likely have no difficulty fitting into most of his wardrobe. The doctor ran his hand down his face with a deep breath; yet again, something felt off. He heard Ansel take something metal and heavy down from the top shelf of the closet, but didn’t react to it. Something was making him feel anxious. What was bothering him?

            “What _is_ this?”

            Darcy turned around and nearly had a heart attack when he saw Ansel—who was now wearing a red t-shirt of his—peering into the jar that held his own ashes. The container wasn’t labelled, thankfully, but Ansel seemed somewhat perturbed regardless. “It’s my dad,” the older man blurted.

            “Oh, Jesus.” Ansel put the lid back onto the container. “Sorry.”

            “It’s alright.” Darcy told him, though inwardly he was panicking at how much of a close call that could have been.

            Ansel was quiet for a second after putting the jar of ashes back, but then he sighed. “Y’know, Darc,” he began, “I really did think I was gonna die that night.”

            Nervously, Darcy looked up at Ansel. “What makes you say that?”

            Ansel turned, facing him now, and admit, “I just had that feeling, you know? That… sorta _flutter_ in my chest, like my heart was about to give up. A lightheaded feeling and the sensation that my life was flashing before my eyes. Like I had to start working on my bucket list ASAP.”

            Darcy knew the feeling, as he still remembered his own death. Finally, it occurred to him to ask, “You said I died in your arms that day?”

            Ansel turned his eyes to the hardwood floor beneath them. “Yeah.”

            “What happened after that? Why did the doppelgänger of me let you go?”

            The younger man had to think, but eventually gave up, confessing, “I don’t know. All I remember is this intense feeling of grief, and that I felt like I was going to go insane. Maybe I did for a minute. I probably repressed it.”

            “Well, whatever you did, it saved my life.”

            “I guess it must’ve.” Ansel shrugged, but when he looked up at Darcy again, his face paled.

            “Ansel?”

            After a beat, the former insomniac slowly shook his head. He had just remembered a snippet of what happened after his brief psychotic break post-Darcy’s death: an image of himself stabbing Darcy’s doppelgänger in the neck and head over and over and over. “Nothing.” He denied. “I’m good.”

            “You… sure about that?”

            “Yeah.” Ansel turned back toward the closet, and Darcy was about to let the conversation end until the young man spoke again. “Hey, uh, Darc?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Do you…” He shook his head again and let out a short laugh. “I don’t expect you to, but… You wouldn’t happen to know anyone by the name of ‘Dantalion’, would you?”

            Darcy furrowed his brows. “Not that I know of.”

            Ansel shook his head once more and again faced the closet. “It’s nothing, forget it.” He replied. “Anyway, since _someone_ let my number get recycled, I need a way to call that Molly chick.”

            “You want to call her tonight?”

            “Hell yeah!”

            Darcy shrugged his shoulders. “I guess you could use the landline, then. But who’s Dantalion?”

            “I don’t know.” Ansel admit casually. “That’s what _I’m_ trying to find out.” He pulled a white coat—not the one Darcy used to wear, but a different one that was much shorter and also a brighter shade of white—from the closet and looked at his friend before asking, “Can I wear this?”

            “Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”

            Ansel slipped the coat on over the red t-shirt. He looked pretty cool in the former doctor’s opinion.

            “Looks good on you, Ansel.”

            Ansel gave him a small smile in response. Shortly after, he headed downstairs, leaving Darcy alone in the bedroom. The older man stood up and found himself starting to pace, so he sat down at his desk and opened the black notebook there, grabbing a pencil. As he flipped through the lined pages, he found random notes he had left for himself and a few doodles. Then, page upon page of attempted drawings of Ansel. Darcy wasn’t much of an artist, but over the past two years, he’d been practicing only with his memory of Ansel. Staring at the latest drawing, from two weeks prior, the former doctor pulled the tattered photograph of his friend out from his pocket. It still hurt: thinking about him when he was alone, even though he was alive again. However, he had something else in his mind that he wanted to draw for some reason, though he couldn’t see it clearly.

            After flipping to a new page, Darcy put his pencil down on the page, but nothing happened. He waited for something to hit him, but nothing did, so he brought his free hand up to his chin and looked up at the wall. Soon he was lost in thought, though on what exactly, he wasn’t sure. His mind wandered from topic to topic as he thought he heard something downstairs (which he tuned out), before finally settling on the subject of his doppelgänger. Ansel’s former friend, Jay, had used black magic to create it, which was exactly what Bradley had used to resurrect Ansel himself. However, his doppelgänger demon had never been exorcised; Jay had been killed by it before he could get rid of it. So, two questions remained: why had he come back to life, and why had Ansel been able to get out of the situation alive? Sure, his illness progressed rapidly from that point on, but the demon had not only not killed him, but had resurrected Darcy. Things didn’t add up. There had to be some sort of catch.

            When he snapped out of his thoughts, he glanced down at the paper, and then immediately froze. Drawn onto the paper unconsciously by his own hand was some sort of symbol. It had a total of nine circles and three branches that looked like crucifixes. Confused, the doctor-turned-nurse tilted his head. He didn’t know what he’d drawn, or _why_ he’d drawn it, but it looked vaguely familiar to him for some reason he couldn’t explain.

            “Huh.”

            He forgot all about it the second he heard his ringtone go off. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cellphone, and was surprised to see that Bradley was calling him. Confused but willing to talk, Darcy answered the call, putting the phone to his ear.

            “Hello?”

            “Darcy,” Bradley gasped, sounding nearly hysterical, “where’s Ansel?”

* * *

 

            It took Ansel a minute to find the landline downstairs, but when he did, he pulled the pad of paper out from the back pocket of his grey pants—still stained with paint—and looked at the number written there. With a nervous breath, he picked up the receiver and dialed the number. As it rung, he felt the intense urge to hang up before she answered, but then he heard her voice and realized it was too late to chicken out.

            “Hello?” She answered.

            “Hey, Molly.” He said, struggling to sound less flustered than he was. “It’s, uh… It’s Ansel.”

            “Oh, hi!” The woman giggled. “I didn’t expect you to call so soon.”

            “Heh, well, y’know…” He wasn’t sure what to say, so he just trailed off awkwardly. Then he told her, “Look, I’m just gonna say it. I know it’s probably pretty forward, but… I think you’re very pretty.”

            “Well, I’ve already said you’re handsome.” She joked back.

            “True. Anyway, it’s just, you’re pretty, so… I was wondering, if… uh…”

            “Would you like to go out for a drink or two?” She cut him off with an offer of her own.

            “Wow.” He replied. “Speaking of forward…”

            “Life’s too short to take everything slow.” The teacher declared. “You’re handsome, I’m pretty; let’s see what happens. What do you say?”

            It sounded almost too good to be true, but if Molly was that into him after seeing him for only a few minutes earlier that day, he wasn’t going to complain. Idly, he felt the back pocket of his pants, and was relieved to find that his wallet was still there. “Uh, sure.” He agreed. “I’d love to. Where at?”

            She named a location that he knew, but after they ended the call and he hung up, he realized that he had no clue how to get there from this house. “Shit,” he mumbled to himself, “I hope my sense of direction isn’t _too_ bad…” He pulled his wallet out from his back pocket and opened it. To his relief, he still had all of the money he’d left in it the last time he used it, two years prior. He was about to head for the front door, but he approached the staircase instead and called up, “Darc! I’m goin’ out for a bit, alright? Don’t wait up!”

            There was no response, so Ansel shrugged and left through the front door. He didn’t have a key to lock the door from the outside, so he merely pretended to lock it in case somebody was watching (which he doubted, but he’d learned that it wasn’t possible to be too careful after his experience with Jay). He found that despite that fact that snow was falling onto the ground, it wasn’t _too_ cold outside, so the coat would do even if it was left open. After taking a nervous breath, he walked down the steps to the sidewalk and started to head in the direction he assumed to be the right one.

            “How the hell do I get there from here…?” He breathed the question to himself anyway, and then stopped in his tracks. Almost immediately after he asked that question aloud, the answer came to him, and he realized he was walking the wrong way. “Huh,” he thought, “guess I _did_ know.”

            Thinking nothing unusual of how the answer to his question dawned on him, the former insomniac turned around and began heading in the right direction. Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the bar he had agreed to meet Molly at. Figuring that maybe he was a little bit early, he stepped inside and sat at the end of the bar that was furthest from the front door. After he sat down, he glanced up at the bartender; he’d seen him a few times, but they were no more than mere acquaintances. Still, for some reason, the man stared at him like he was looking at a ghost.

            “Hey.” Ansel spoke timidly. “Long time no see, huh?”

            “Indeed,” the bartender managed to say despite his shock.

            Ansel was only sitting there for another minute before he noticed someone at one of the tables gawking at him in terror. He raised a brow, but then recognized the man; it was Darcy’s least favorite acquaintance, a nurse named Ryan Raimondi. Though he was still confused as to why the man seemed horrified to see him, he raised his brows and nodded at him, acknowledging his presence; even more confusing, this show of recognition only seemed to make Ryan more frightened.

            “Ansel?”

            He looked up at the sound of Molly’s voice, finding her to have taken a seat to his right. “Molly.”

            “You haven’t been waiting too long, have you?” She asked, her teeth chattering. She was bundled up in a thick parka and a scarf, and her cheeks were rosy from exposure to the cold. Ansel was surprised that she was so chilled to the bone, since he had only walked in a t-shirt and a thin coat and had if anything been a little too warm, but he didn’t comment on it.

            “No, I just got here about two or three minutes ago.”

            “Oh, good.” As she started to remove her coat, the bartender approached.

            “She your girlfriend?” He asked.

            Ansel laughed nervously. “Well, n—”

            “Yep, that’s me.” Molly replied with a smile. Ansel shot her a confused look, which prompted her to turn to him and beam at him. He wanted to argue and tell the truth, but at the same time, he couldn’t deny that he felt excited that she was being so forward.

            “What’ll you two have?”

            “Two shots of vodka.” The math teacher answered, then glanced at Ansel. “You do like vodka, don’t you, babe?”

            He was getting weirded out, but he slowly nodded.

            The bartender shrugged and walked over to the other end of the bar to prepare their shots, and while he was away, Ansel looked at Molly.

            “Why are you saying we’re a couple?” He asked her in a hushed voice. “We only met this morning.”

            She shrugged. “Again, life’s too short. I mean, you like me, don’t you?”

            “Sure, but I hardly know anything about you.”

            “I just have a good feeling about this; whatever we have here.” She told him with an innocent grin as she took hold of his hand and rubbed his knuckles with her thumb.

            Ansel wished he could agree with her, but while most of him was all for this, there was still a part of him deep down that felt like something was wrong. He couldn’t figure out why she was so into him. It didn’t make sense. Even so, he couldn’t help but play along. He really liked Molly for some reason deeper than how beautiful she was. If he didn’t know it any better, he might have called it a case of love at first sight.

            The bartender brought them their drinks, and a couple of shots later, Ansel was no longer conflicted about his feelings for Molly. If she wanted to be an item with him, in his tipsy state, he was absolutely on board with her. After a period of time, the length of which Ansel was unsure of, Molly finally put her coat back on over her shoulders and flashed him what he could have sworn were bedroom eyes. She wasn’t as drunk as he was, and would still be able to drive; at least he hoped she would, considering what she offered.

            “I can drive you home if you’d like.” She told him, but then brought her skinny fingers to his chin and rubbed the patch of facial hair there. “Or, I mean, we could… head back to _my_ place…”

            Ansel felt a chill of excitement run down his spine. His judgment a tad too impaired for him to reconsider, he gulped, feeling hot under the collar, and nodded.

            “Yeah?” She hummed in an entrancingly flirtatious tone.

            “Yeah…” He choked.

            Stumbling on his own feet, not as much due to drunkenness as it was due to nervousness, Ansel followed the gorgeous math teacher out of the bar. They were halfway to her car—a black hatchback—when someone shouted at them.

            “Hey!” The voice hollered.

            Ansel turned around, as did Molly; it was Ryan. He approached reluctantly, but kept his distance at the same time. “Your name’s Ryan, right?” Ansel asked him. “What do you want?”

            “Ansel?” The nurse asked. “Ansel Hunnisett?”

            “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

            “That’s impossible.”

            “Look, man, you’re drunk. Do you want us to call a taxi for you?”

            “Who are you?!” Ryan demanded on the verge of panic.

            Ansel took a step back, closer to Molly. “You just said my name, chill! I’m Ansel!”

            “You’re lying!”

            “What makes you think that?”

            “Ansel Hunnisett is dead!”

            Something in Ansel’s head clicked, but he pushed aside the fog that had arisen in his mind and shook his head. “There’s been a misunderstanding.” He tittered to the nurse. “I’ve been in a coma sort of state, but I’m very much alive.”

            “What, do you need me to show you his death records?! Ansel died on December 24th of 2016! I can _prove_ it! So _who_ _are you?!_ ”

            “Hey, look at me!” Ansel shouted back. “You recognized me, didn’t you? I’m tellin’ you, I’m _alive!_ You’re mistaken!”

            “Then where’s Darcy, huh?! Where’s Dr. Adair?!”

            “He’s at home, Ryan.”

            “At your apartment?”

            “No, at his dad’s old place! Dude, I’m up-to-speed on everything!”

            “You were _cremated!_ I was _there!_ ”

            Those statements made Ansel’s argument crumble before his eyes. It didn’t make sense, but really, he had no proof that he _hadn’t_ died. The ashes he had held… were they really Darcy’s father’s? “No, you’re…” The former insomniac shook his head, slowly at first and then somewhat wildly. “You’re mistaken. How else could you explain me being alive right now?”

            Ryan pointed at him accusingly. “You’re that doppelgänger creature that killed my father, aren’t you?! You son of a bitch!”

            “Ansel, what’s he talking about?!” Molly cowered behind him.

            Ansel backed closer into her defensively, now snarling somewhat at the nurse in front of them. “Ignore him!” He told her before saying to Ryan, “You’re insane. That thing’s long gone. Now, she and I are leaving, and if you try anything funny, I swear I’ll call the cops on your ass faster than you can say ‘oops’.”

            Molly ran around and got into the driver’s seat, and as Ansel opened the passenger side door and stepped inside, he kept his eye on Ryan, who watched them leave. Despite not trying anything, he still wore a vengeful look on his youthful face. After closing the door and putting on his seatbelt, Ansel narrowed his eyes at the nurse.

            “Should we go?” The math teacher asked him, having regained her composure all of the sudden.

            “Yeah.” Ansel grumbled.

            “Ansel.”

            He didn’t react, still continuing to glare at Ryan. He had an odd feeling in his chest that he couldn’t put a name to which was mixing in with the combination of fear and fury he already felt.

            “Babe.”

            Trying to push his frustration aside, Ansel turned to look at Molly, only to jolt when she placed her hand against his cheek. Next thing he knew, her lips were pressed against his, and his cold anger and uncertainty both melted away into a warm, satisfactory infatuation with the woman sitting beside him. His heart now pounding in his chest for a different reason, he leaned closer to her and began kissing back, and soon they found themselves in the midst of a passionate make-out session. Almost too quickly for his likes, she pulled back, leaving him hovering where they’d just been kissing, breathing a bit heavier than before. She looked at him with eyes that he saw were blue, though he could have sworn before that they were green.

            “My place?” She panted with a smirk as she started the car.

            “Yes, please."


	16. Chapter 16

            With how the front door was unlocked, Darcy was able to put two and two together and figure out that Ansel was probably with Molly Barton. Bradley wanted to be the one to call her, but he didn’t have her number on him, and he was too frightened to pay attention to a whole phone number, since he had just revealed to Darcy that his fiancée had burst into hysteria and was seeing her dead son attacking her. So, with no other choice, Darcy had to call her himself. He had offered to keep Bradley on his cell, but the computer teacher declined, saying that he needed to look after his fiancée.

            With the call dropped, Darcy hurried downstairs. Ansel had taken the block of paper with Molly’s number on it with him, it seemed, so he had to use redial and hope that Ansel hadn’t called anyone else after the math teacher. “Who would he call?” He wondered silently in response to his own concern.

            It took four or five rings, but Molly did answer. She sounded sort of groggy, like she’d just been asleep even though it was only five in the evening. “Hello…?”

            “Molly, it’s Dr. Adair.”

            “Oh… Hey.”

            “Is Ansel there?”

            “Mmm, yeah…”

            “Could you put him on the phone?”

            “I think he’s asleep…”

            “Put him on the line!” His insistence got Molly awake, and he could hear her mumbling away from the phone for Ansel to wake up. After only a second more, Ansel was on the line, sounding about as alert as a half-asleep toddler.

            “Yep?” He grumbled.

            “Ansel, Bradley’s fiancée just went crazy!”

            He heard his friend groan as if he was wiping his eyes. “So?” Ansel eventually responded.

            “ _So_ I need you _here!_ ”

            He heard Ansel sit up due to his shout. “Alright, alright, fine,” he gave in, though he seemed a tad frustrated, “Don’t get your panties in a knot, Darc. I’ll have Molly drive me back.” Then he mumbled, “We need to talk, anyway.”

            Ignoring his last statement, since he hadn’t been focusing enough to really hear it, Darcy pleaded, “Be quick.”

            “I’ll be there in twenty minutes tops.”

            “Thank you. Please hurry.”

            “I’m hanging up now, Darc.”

            “Hurry.”

            Ansel did, indeed, hang up on him, but he didn’t blame him. In all honesty, he was terrified because he felt like something was watching him. He couldn’t explain it; he just felt like he had eyes on him; eyes that wanted to do him nothing but harm. He was scared to be alone, to the point where it didn’t even occur to him to question why Ansel had been sleeping beside Molly.

            The former doctor began pacing again, but this time, he didn’t stop himself. Instead, he allowed himself to pace back and forth from the living room to the dining room and back again. He had turned around to step into the dining room when he saw him. Seeing the shorter, older man made Darcy’s blood run cold, and he stepped back only to nearly trip on his own feet. It was impossible, what he was seeing; this man in front of him was dead. He’d seen him die on camera, and had seen his corpse with his own two eyes! The staircase was immediately to his left, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get up it fast enough. The man in front of him glared at him with pure hatred in his usually-soft eyes.

            “Dad…?” Darcy choked the word out. In response, his father began walking forward. His fight or flight response kicking into overdrive, Darcy chose the latter, and began jumping up the stairs two at a time. His father began chasing after him; _three at a time somehow._ The former doctor made it up to the second floor and belted out a terrified scream as he ran for the bedroom down the hall. He made it in quicker, and slammed the door behind himself, pressing his back against it. Before long, his father began pounding on the wooden door, causing Darcy to cry out in fear.

            His own father was going to kill him. In some weird way, he felt that was fitting. He figured that his dad knew it wasn’t him that had been his killer, but he’d never had a way to be sure. He had never dreamed that his father’s angry spirit might come back from the grave to kill him, though, but black magic had taught him that nearly anything was possible. The thumping against the door got rougher and more aggressive, and Darcy tried to hold the door shut, but he was just so tired. One powerful shove was all it took to fling the door open, sending Darcy sliding back into the wall, where he slumped to the floor.

            It was over. He didn’t bother to open his eyes. He was going to die.

            … But nothing happened. Nervously, Darcy opened his right eye only, but then opened his left as well when he realized that he was alone. The lock on the door had bust, and there were splinters of wood all over the floor from where the door had been broken open, but other than that, there were no signs that anyone had ever been after the former doctor. He stayed frozen in place for several beats, waiting for his certain death to return, but no such thing came for him. He was alone. Horribly frightened, Darcy then began to weep.

* * *

 

            He had calmed down somewhat by the time the front door opened, but he didn’t move until he heard Ansel’s voice downstairs.

            “Darc?” He called. “Where are you?”

            Those words got Darcy to his feet, and then he was running down the stairs. Ansel watched him as he ran over, but when the doctor clung to him, he didn’t return the embrace. “Ansel, I’m so glad you’re alright…!”

            “Sure, Darc.” Ansel replied in a flat voice after a beat. “Look, could we go upstairs?”

            “I…” Darcy pulled back from the hug. He could sense that Ansel was angry about something. “I guess so. Why?”

            “We need to talk.”

            Those four words in the vaguely threatening tone that Ansel used made Darcy’s heart skip a beat. Mute from fear, the older man merely nodded, and then he led Ansel upstairs. The younger man headed into the bedroom, and he hesitated before following him, giving him time to pull open the closet door and point up at the jar of ashes. “Ansel, what…?”

            “These aren’t your dad’s, are they?”

            Darcy started to sweat. “They are.”

            “You sure about that, Darcy?” Using the older man’s full name was Ansel’s way of expressing that he wasn’t kidding around. Darcy recognized this, and it only made him more nervous.

            “Of course.” He lied again. “Why are you asking?”

            “Well, because I met a certain someone an hour ago, and he was adamant that I had been cremated.”

            “Who?” The question was merely on a breath. Darcy was sure that Ansel could see the pure terror on his face, but he couldn’t mask it.

            “That nurse you hate.” Ansel answered in a low, intimidating voice. “Ryan. He swore up and down that I died the day I went to see you from the hospital. And, you know, I’ve given it some thought, and it really does make sense. Why else would almost all of my clothes be missing, and why else would you have my cellphone number recycled? I wasn’t in a coma, was I, Darcy? I’d still be at the hospital if I were. I died, didn’t I?”

            Darcy gulped, but didn’t say anything. He couldn’t find the _strength_ to say anything, even if he did have any words to say in his defense.

            “Darcy, tell me the truth!”

            His lips beginning to quiver, and his brown eyes beginning to water, Darcy finally managed to say, “Yes.”

            Ansel narrowed his eyes at Darcy, but the former doctor wasn’t done.

            “You died, alright? You closed your eyes, and you never opened them again. You stopped breathing on my lap. I… I didn’t know what to do. I was _lost_ without you. I quit my job. I didn’t leave the house for months. I nearly starved myself to death—hell, I nearly _killed_ myself. I couldn’t live with the fact that _you_ were the one that died, when I distinctly recall that _I_ had died!” Trying to contain his sobs, Darcy shook his head and continued, “For two whole years, I tried to think of ways to cope. I drew your face every day. I printed out a picture of you,” he pulled the picture from his pocket and showed it to Ansel with a shaky hand, “and I kept it in my pocket. My life was _nothing, after you!_ ”

            Ansel’s face was softening, but he still seemed annoyed. A tear rolled down Darcy’s cheek. He still wasn’t done releasing his bottled up emotions.

            “I left everyone behind! But then I met Bradley, and… and he knew black magic! He knew _necromancy!_ ”

            Ansel’s fury returned, tenfold. “You _used black magic to bring me back?!_ ” He roared.

            “ _Tell me what else I was supposed to do!!_ ” Darcy screamed. “I _needed_ you!! I’m sorry you’re upset with me, but I’m _not sorry I did it!_ ” He put his head in his hand and sobbed. “Can you really blame me for wanting to do _anything_ , no matter how _insane_ , to _have my best friend back_ …? I lied to keep you with me… I was afraid that… if you found out you died, you would be different…! That… That you would _leave_ …”

            Ansel was growing emotional himself, and had a tear fighting to fall down his right cheek. His fury dissipated, and he was about to forgive Darcy for lying, but then poor happenstance caused him to avert his eyes in the exact direction of Darcy’s desk, where he saw something that made his feelings of acceptance turn back into ones of betrayal. Not saying anything, he pushed past Darcy, who remained facing the closet, still hiccupping small sobs.

            The doctor was so terrified that he was about to lose Ansel. If he had been lied to about his own death, he would be pretty upset too, but this was different; he was risking Ansel’s sanity. However, not even for a second did he regret his decision to bring him back to life.

            “Y’know,” Ansel laughed, though it was a dry, emotionless sound, “you almost had me there.”

            Darcy raised his head and slowly turned around, confused.

            “We really were about to kiss and make up. But you always were one for subtlety, weren’t you?”

            “Ansel…?”

            Ansel whipped around, holding Darcy’s notebook in his right hand. He held it up, showing Darcy the odd symbol he had unconsciously drawn earlier. “You didn’t really think I would miss this, did you?”

            “I don’t know what that is.” Darcy confessed, cautiously shaking his head.

            “Oh, don’t play dumb with me. Jay did black magic, too. I know more than my fair share about sigils, Dantalion! Though, why you would draw your own seal is beyond me.”

            “What are you talking about? Ansel, you’re scaring me.”

            Ansel dropped the notebook to the floor. He was smiling, but his eyes were vaguely aggressive, if not completely lifeless. “I can’t help but feel that this is at least _slightly_ ironic. I mean, you’re one of the ones I’m not allowed to break, but at the same time, you’re my only true target.”

            Darcy took a step back, and that caused Ansel’s smile to turn into a frightening smirk. “A—Ansel, listen to me, man. Poppet?”

            “This should be interesting.” Ansel tapped his finger against his lips. “I might be able to drive a _spirit_ insane for once.”

            “Ansel, snap out of it!” Darcy stepped forward and tried to slap his friend, but the younger man caught his wrist with an iron grip.

            “Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Ansel wagged the index finger of his free hand at Darcy as he leisurely shook his head. “You really shouldn’t hit your friends, Dantalion.”

            That was when Ansel decked him so hard that he slammed into the floor with almost the same amount of force as the strike. He heard Ansel grab something from the desk, and then the younger man was standing over him, a foot on either side of his body, so Darcy forced himself to look up. Held tightly in his right hand was the pen that Darcy had used to draw the sigil. When he looked higher up, however, his hairs stood up on end; Ansel’s eyes were scarlet red, just like they’d been in his nightmare.

            With a distorted voice that matched up, again, with his nightmare, Ansel casually remarked, “ **Did you know it’s possible to kill a man with a pen? You really need a lot of adrenaline for it, but I can do whatever I want with this body, so I think I’ve got a bit of an advantage on the average human being.** ”

            “Ansel—”

            “ **Ooh,** ” Ansel, amused, cringed jokingly, “ **I’m afraid he can’t help you now. I’m sorry about this; really, I am. I’m not usually violent. I typically only drive people insane. But I’m afraid you’ve overstayed your welcome here, and the big man downstairs wants you back. Your legions are getting antsy!** ” He raised the pen higher, and his red eyes widened a bit in excitement. “ **I promise I’ll make it quick.** ”

            When Ansel’s left hand grabbed his forehead and held his head down against the floor, Darcy grabbed at his fingers, trying to pry them off. “ _Ansel, no!!_ ” He begged.

            “ **Darcy,** ” the younger man gasped, his voice still slightly off.

            “Ansel, I know you’re in there! Fight it, _please!_ ”

            Darcy watched Ansel’s crazed face shift into one of concern and fear. Though his eyes were still red, his left hand began to tremble before he let go of Darcy’s forehead. Taking his chance, the former doctor shove Ansel, who had lowered into a crouch, off of himself before jumping to his feet. He took a few quick steps toward the door, but he paused there as Ansel shakily got back into his crouch, from which he wobbled into a standing position with his arms hanging loosely by his sides. The younger man’s head was down, and he was still clutching the pen, though Darcy could see him fighting to release it.

            “D—Darcy, run…” He managed to get out in a pained groan. “This… sonuvabitch… won’t let up…”

            Darcy trembled, but he took a step forward. “No, I—I’m not going to leave you behind!”

            “ _Run, please!!_ ” Ansel begged as he grabbed his right wrist, holding it down. “ _Before I hurt you!!_ ” He really seemed to be struggling with all of his might. Though he was very unsure about doing so, Darcy grabbed his coat off of the chair in the corner, and then he booked it out of the bedroom. As he dashed down the stairs, pulling his coat on clumsily as he did, he heard Ansel roar in a deep screech, “ ** _DANTALION!!_** ”

            He started running faster, ripping open the front door and running out without even bothering to close the door behind himself. He couldn’t believe how quickly things had escalated. Just about five minutes ago, Ansel had only just walked in through the front door, annoyed but normal. It hadn’t been his confession, though, that tipped Ansel over the edge; it had been that sigil he’d been stupid enough not to cover up! Inwardly cursing himself, Darcy kept running until he made a quick turn, hiding behind the side of a house. He could keep running after he asked for help. After pulling his cellphone from his pocket, he called Bradley. “Please pick up…!”

            Luckily for him, Bradley did. “Darcy?”

            “It’s Ansel,” was all that Darcy said, and all that he _needed_ to say.


	17. Chapter 17

            Bradley had left his still-nearly-hysterical fiancée in the car in order to enter the school on his own. The building was still open, and would be until the janitors left around eight, so he had time to stick around. He began pacing in front of the door to Darcy’s office, waiting for the doctor to show up; Darcy would likely have to run there, since going back to the house wasn’t really an option for him considering whatever had happened to Ansel that would have lead him to call for help. He just hoped that the doctor-turned-nurse was okay, and that something hadn’t happened to him on the way to the school.

            It must have been twenty minutes before he started to get antsy, but just as he was about to go look outside, Darcy came jogging—panting from exhaustion as he did—down the hall toward him. With one final burst of energy, he sprinted to Bradley, and when he stopped in front of him, he put his hands on his knees and gasped for air.

            “What happened?” The teacher asked. Darcy looked up at him, but didn’t reply at first. Instead, he unlocked the door to his office and stepped inside. Bradley followed him, closing the door behind himself, and after sitting down at the round table in the room, Darcy ran his fingers through his messy hair and did a few hiccupped half-sob breaths before finally speaking.

            “You were right,” he quietly cried, “but you were wrong, too.”

            “What do you mean?” Bradley inquired, concerned, as he stepped closer.

            “He found out he died, and I confessed to everything.”

            “You did _what?!_ ”

            “Let me finish!” Darcy barked, so Bradley reluctantly closed his mouth to let him continue. “He was fine when I told him the truth. Completely _fine!_ But then he saw something I drew without realizing what I was doing…” He brought his hand to his face and groaned in self-loathing. “I should’ve covered it, but how was I to know what it would cause?!”

            Bradley finally sat down. “You drew something that made the demon snap? What was it?”

            The doctor flailed his hands about in an attempt to remember Ansel’s words. “A… A sigil, apparently. A sigil belonging to someone called Dantalion? He kept calling me that!”

            The computer teacher slowly leaned back in his chair, his face paling as he did.

            “What? Do you know what he meant?”

            “You drew Dantalion’s sigil?”

            “Apparently! I didn’t know what it was! I wasn’t even paying attention when I drew it!”

            “Dantalion’s a demon, Darcy. A Night Demon. He rules upwards of thirty-six or so legions of lost souls.”

            “What does he do?” Darcy nervously asked.

            “Plenty of things, mainly producing hallucinations and bending people’s innermost thoughts to his will. He called _you_ Dantalion, though?”

            Darcy nodded.

            That threw Bradley for a loop, and he scratched his beard in confusion. “I don’t get it.”

            “He said that I’m—well, _Dantalion_ ’s—his only target,” Darcy also told him, “and that he’s ‘not usually violent’ and ‘typically only drives people insane’. He told me I’d ‘overstayed my welcome’ and that _Satan himself_ wanted me back, and that Dantalion’s legions were getting ‘antsy’.”

            Bradley thought for a second before coming to a worrying conclusion. “Have you ever been involved in black magic before?” He finally asked.

            Darcy gulped, but didn’t answer.

            “You have, haven’t you? That’s how you knew black magic worked.”

            The doctor lowered his head. “A demon was summoned by one of Ansel’s old friends, a real lunatic named Jay.” He confessed. “It took on my likeness and killed four people, Jay included, before it…” He shook his head.

            “Before it what?”

            “Before it killed me. I don’t know how I’m alive, or how Ansel got out alive, either, but… It just… disappeared.”

            His new realization even darker than the first, Bradley frowned intensely. “Darcy… I think he might be right.”

            “About what?”

            “About associating you with Dantalion.”

            The doctor gave Bradley a strange look. “I don’t understand.”

            “The demon that his friend summoned… I think it could have been Dantalion.” He then added, “I mean, Dantalion isn’t usually violent either; in fact, he usually just makes people fall in love. But some of the other things he can do might fit, and… Maybe he brought you back for some reason. Maybe…” The teacher’s pale face blanched ever further. “Maybe he’s within you, like Ansel’s demon is.”

            Darcy didn’t know what to say. Sure, the demon having been Dantalion would make sense. It could have caused him to hallucinate the security camera footage of his father’s death, and could have made Ryan’s father, coroner Dr. Raimondi, fall abruptly and obsessively in love with Dr. Avery Park, but bringing Darcy himself back from the dead and living within him? That didn’t make any sense, but at the same time, it made _too much_ sense considering how Ansel had suggested that Dantalion had been on Earth for too long. “So, what…” He began to ask, somewhat skeptically, “You think that this demon had a change of heart when it saw Ansel react to my death and decided to bring me back to life at the cost of Ansel’s health?”

            The teacher pondered for a moment, then realized that was exactly what he thought, and nodded. “Maybe he’s still with you. You’d probably drop dead if he wasn’t.”

            Darcy huffed and ran his hand down his face. He never would have imagined this whole endeavor leading up to the discovery that _he probably had a damned demon inside himself._

            “But, this complicates things, then…”

            “Yeah, you think?”

            “No,” Bradley argued, “I mean, if Dantalion’s keeping you alive, assuming he is on our side… We can’t exorcise Ansel with you in earshot.”

            “You’re not exorcising Ansel.” Darcy immediately declared. “I’m not letting him get sent to Hell with whatever we brought up with him.”

            “There’s no other choice, Darcy! He’s going to hunt you down to the ends of the Earth!”

            “I’ll find a way to—”

            Before Darcy could even finish his bravado-based statement, they both jolted at the sound of glass shattering outside.

            “What was that?” Darcy whispered.

            “It sounded like—”

            “ ** _DANTALION!!_** ” The loud screech could be heard even from inside the room with the door closed. “ ** _COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!!_** ”

            When Darcy shot Bradley a panicked look, the teacher only replied with, “Like I said; to the ends of the Earth.”

            In an attempt to flee, the two jumped up and rushed out into the hall. The closest exit was to their right, so they turned that way, but froze; down the hall, walking towards them, was Ansel. The young man was now wearing a long black cloak that dragged across the floor. Around the neck area of the cloak was fur with a leopard print. Neither of them even questioned where the cloak had come from (since the demon had probably conjured it itself) and instead watched as a janitor had the misfortune of stepping out between them and Ansel.

            The janitor started to complain about the shards of glass that Ansel’s cloak was dragging along, but then the young man whipped around to face him and raised his right hand, extending it toward him. The doctor and teacher both watched in horror as the janitor dropped his mop and crumpled to his knees, beginning to cackle quietly as he scratched at his eyes and tugged at his hair. Ansel then flipped back around, his red eyes landing on Darcy, at which point he grinned madly.

            “Run,” Bradley suggested in a small voice. Then, the two took off down the hall as Ansel began laughing maniacally, the booming noises filling the halls and echoing back at his prey, making them feel as if they were surrounded.

            “ **You can run, but you _can’t hide_ , Dantalion!!**”

            They must have run for at least thirty seconds before they reached the exit that led to the parking lot. When they did, they careened through the doors, nearly falling on their faces with how icy the concrete was.

            “My car!” Bradley shouted. “Come on!”

            The duo ran like mad toward the teacher’s car, ripping open the driver and passenger side doors when they finally got to it. Sofia was in the back seat, and she was noticeably disturbed to see another man with her husband-to-be in the front of the car.

            “Who is this?” She asked.

            As he shakily turned the ignition on, Bradley quickly introduced them. “Sofia, Darcy! Darcy, Sofia!”

            “Hello,” Darcy greeted her in a brief, panicked social nicety.

            “What’s going on?”

            “Oh, you know,” the teacher struggled to sound composed as he turned the car into reverse and started backing out of the parking lot, “there’s just a demon trying to kill us. The usual!”

            All three of them screamed when Ansel was suddenly in front of the car, slamming his hands down on the hood hard enough to make the car bounce somewhat.

            “ **I do enjoy you making a _game_ of this, but I would like _to be home before suppertime!_** ” The demon shrilled at Darcy. In the blink of an eye, Ansel was on the side of the car, ripping the passenger side door off like a piece of paper in a notebook and whipping it away like a Frisbee before grabbing Darcy by the throat and tugging him out of the car. He then tossed him aside like a doll, and when he landed a good few feet away, he landed _hard_ on the concrete—hard enough for the landing to force a hiccup of air out of his lungs. Not interested in Bradley or his wife, Ansel then started casually walking toward Darcy. “ **This truly has been a pleasure, Dantalion. Alas, I am afraid the end is nigh.** ”

            Sitting in the driver’s seat, his back pressed against the door, Bradley quickly thought. He had an idea of who they were dealing with; the candle that had turned green, the fact that the demon claimed it usually drove people mad, the leopard print on the collar… There were three of them, as well: he, Darcy, and Ansel; the three of pentacles. He could be wrong, but if he wasn’t… Wow, had he made a mistake summoning _any_ demon. He got out of the car despite his fiancée’s protests, and, standing his ground beside the back of the car, he shouted out the name of the demon he worried he was dealing with. “ _Ose!_ ”

            Ansel stopped in his tracks.

            Shit, it _was_ him. Bradley’s heart started to race as Ose slowly turned to face him.

            “ **So,** ” the Night Demon sung, “ **you know my name. It’s about time, Mr. Carlisle. I was waiting for you to figure it out.** ”

            “Why _you?_ ”

            Ose shrugged. “ **Too many coincidences for me to pass up! I mean, there were two of you, plus this spirit… And the person you tried to revive was born within the degrees of Capricorn I cover. What are the odds, right?** ” He cackled, amused, but Bradley was considerably less so. “ **Besides, I was sent to reap Dantalion. I had to make it to Earth _somehow_. I can’t very well summon myself.** ” He gave Bradley a curtsy. “ **Thanks for making an opening for me. I would repay you by destroying that little thing you mortals call sanity, but I’m afraid you’ve summoned me, so I cannot.** ”

            “I can banish you, too!” Bradley warned.

            “ **But can you banish me _and_ thirty whole legions of demons at the same time?** ”

            “Your thirty legions are still in Hell!”

            Ose smirked at Bradley. “ **That can be easily remedied.** ”

            Bradley flinched. Somehow, it had never occurred to him that Ose could do summoning spells of his own. He just hoped it was a bluff… at least, until Ose closed his eyes and began to chant in Latin. “Oh, shit…”

            Darcy finally managed to sit up. “Ansel! I know you can hear me! Stop him!”

            Ose whipped around. In one fell swoop, he punched Darcy in the face, causing him to fall back over. Standing over him once more, the demon sighed. “ **You really insist on still hiding in that meat suit? Then, fine. I’ll get you out. Darcy, is it?** ” He tilted his eyes, his eyes wild and his mouth a blank line. “ **You might be wondering how Ansel recognized Dantalion’s sigil. That wasn’t all me. He and Jay went way back. Ansel was learning the arts of black magic himself. Jay was his tutor.** ” Then, he revealed, “ **They conspired against you. Ansel had the idea to screw with a doctor using black magic. He left after Jay insisted it be you. Disagreements and whatnot, as Jay began twisting his words. It was still his idea originally, though.** ”

            Darcy shook his head. “You’re lying… Ansel would never want to do something like that, not even to a doctor!”

            “ **Do you know who I am? I am Ose, one of the Great Presidents of Hell. I answer questions.** ” Intensely, he stressed, “ ** _I tell the truth._** ”

            “Then tell me,” the doctor spat up at him, “are you going to kill me?!”

            “ **I’m afraid so, Darcy. You had the bad luck of getting in the way.** ”

            “Then do it already!!”

            Ose did not say anything. Bradley, too, just stared, his heart in his throat out of terror for what might happen.

            “What are you,” shrieked the doctor, “ _scared?!_ Come on! You can take me _and_ Dantalion to Hell; just let Ansel and Bradley go!”

            “ **Hm.** ” Ose muttered, “ **This is new. I didn’t expect you to attempt to bargain with me. Either way, I’m afraid I cannot accept your offer.** ” He flashed a toothy, mad grin at him. “ ** _It’s more fun if you struggle._** ” Surprisingly, he then turned and started walking away.

            “Where are you going?!” Darcy shouted at him, quivering. “Get back here!!”

            The demon turned his head down to the ground and resumed chanting. The ground shuddered slightly, knocking Darcy back down as he tried to get to his feet. Seeing no other valid option at the moment, Bradley ran over and helped him stand, dragging him back to the car. Sofia was in the driver’s seat already, trying to start the vehicle to no avail.

            “It’s not starting!!” She screamed.

            Already, shadows were starting to form around Ose. There had to be at least seven of them so far, and that was probably only less than half of the first of thirty legions.

            “Come on!” Bradley shouted. “We have to run!”

            Sofia nodded and got out of the car, and then the three of them began to book it out of the parking lot. They were just about to make it out when Sofia suddenly gasped and collapsed to the ground.

            “Sofie?” Bradley stalled and turned around to help his fiancée, while Darcy stood by the exit. “Sofia!”

            Darcy stared at Ose. The demon was still moving Ansel’s lips in a chant, and shadows were still forming, but he had turned around and had his left hand extended toward where Sofia had been running.

            Bradley tried to wake Sofia, but it dawned on him that his wife had been willed dead after he realized that she wasn’t breathing. Her lifeless, glossy eyes were staring up at nothing. All at once, he was overcome with grief. The love of his life was lying on the ground in front of him, dead, but just seconds ago she’d been running behind him. He shouldn’t have used black magic again. He should have made sure she was running ahead of him.

            It was all his fault.

            “ _SOFIA!!_ ” He howled, pulling his fiancée into his arms and holding her tightly. “ _Sofia, no!! NO!!_ ”

            Darcy hurried over and grabbed Bradley’s shirt. “Bradley!!” He begged. “We have to go!!”

            Ose had several human-like silhouettes standing behind him. He stood his ground across the parking lot from them, as if waiting to give the order for his army to charge.

            “Sofia…!!”

            “Bradley!!”

            The computer teacher finally looked at Ose with eyes filled with pain and a lust for vengeance. He could mourn and lament in regret later. Sofia would want him to deal with Ose before anything else. So, slowly, he put his wife down, closing her eyes before standing up. He felt confident in fighting Ose head on until he finally noticed just how many demons stood behind him, waiting for his command. He thought that it was alright, because if he died, he would wind up with Sofia (probably), but then again, he wasn’t about to let himself die without a fight, and if he had to run for his life now in order to fight later…

            Ose shot his arm up, and his head as well. “ ** _GET THEM!!_** ” He dictated in a loud shriek. With that, the demons took off running toward the doctor and the teacher.

            After taking one last look at his fiancée’s body, trying to find the strength to carry on, Bradley shoved Darcy, and the two of them started sprinting as fast as they could. They ran and ran, the demons chasing after them street after street, until they turned into an alleyway, hoping it would give them a way to hide or at least evade their chasers. They stopped halfway in when they finally realized there was a wall in front of them.

            “Shit!” Bradley turned, as did Darcy. Standing at the opening of the alleyway was the army of demons. In front of them stood Ose, who lowered his head somewhat and flashed them an evil, victorious grin.

            Bradley Carlisle had been a high-school teacher for just two years. He taught a computer class, and he really enjoyed his job. He was well-liked by his students and co-workers, and he had a loving fiancée. However, there were some things about himself that he tried to keep hidden. No one but his late wife-to-be and the school nurse knew about his dark past, and he was more than okay with that: he’d wanted to move on with his life. The crimes he had commit in the past had been just that: in the past. He’d wanted to be a normal man. A _good_ man.

            That was why, in that moment, he was so confused by how he’d ended up dabbling in his past habits again. Just over a week ago, he had been doing just fine in keeping everything under control, but what had started out as a good deed had wound up ruining the lives of everyone he knew. His poor fiancée… He couldn’t figure out where he’d gone wrong. His action had seemed so innocent. How had this happened?

            He looked at Darcy, who was staring back at him in terror. It was just them now, with their backs to a dead end. They were surrounded by dozens of barely-human creatures that they could do no harm to. They were cornered. They were _doomed_. As they stared at each other, they blindly grabbed for each other’s hands.

            It was all over.


	18. Chapter 18

            Darcy and Bradley found themselves trying to back into the wall behind them as Ose took three large steps closer. The demon’s left arm came out of the left flat of the cloak, and he raised his index finger, half-pointing at them, and half-pointing at the sky.

            “ **You can’t run anymore, Dantalion!** ” The Night Demon declared. “ **This is the end of your little mortal joyride! It’s time to join me back in the fiery pits of the underworld!** ”

            Bradley pulled Darcy back, standing before the doctor in a defensive stance. Because he was the one who had summoned Ose, he knew that the demon could technically do no harm to him. It was Darcy that he was worried about; Darcy wasn’t supposed to be fair game, but he _was_ , merely due to Dantalion’s supposed presence.

            “If you want him, you’re going to have to go through me.” The computer teacher asserted boldly.

            Ose frowned and paused, but after a few seconds, he allowed his eyelids to droop casually and replied, “ **If you insist.** ”

            That wasn’t right.

            “Brad…”

            Bradley looked to his right. Sofia was standing there. He turned his eyes off of his fiancée and back onto Ose, glaring at him. “She’s just a hallucination. You get out of my head!”

            Sofia disappeared, but the demon seemed more amused than defeated.

            “ **Oh, my dear boy,** ” Ose chuckled, “ ** _she’s merely the distraction._** ”

            Cold hands clamped onto Bradley’s calves—hands cold enough for him to feel the chill through his pant legs—and pulled him off of his feet. He fell over with a grunt in front of Darcy, who thought about helping him back up before the crawling shadow at the teacher’s feet dragged him over to the army behind Ose. “Darcy!” The demons hoisted Bradley to his feet, holding his arms so he couldn’t run.

            “ **I can’t hurt you myself, Mr. Carlisle, but, you see, _I_ summoned my demons, so they can do _anything they want_ to you.** ” That said, Ose turned his scarlet eyes to Darcy, who twitched. “ **Now, Dantalion… Where were we?** ”

            Darcy cowered. He didn’t know what else to do. He was screwed. But then, Ose suddenly stepped aside. His army did so as well, creating a narrow path for Darcy to escape through. He turned his eyes onto the demon, who was staring at him with an expectant smirk. His right arm now came out of the cloak, and he used it to gesture to the opening.

            “ **You want to make this a game, and I said it’s more fun if you struggle. So, how about we play a little game of tag? I’ll give you a ten second headstart.** ”

            The doctor was confused. Was Ose really giving him a chance to run, or was it a ruse?

            “ **Ten.** ” The counting was what signified to Darcy that it was no bluff.

            “Don’t hurt Bradley,” he quickly requested.

            “ **I’d start running if I were you. Nine.** ”

            Taking his chances, Darcy took off running. Bradley watched him go as Ose continued to count down, really taking his time between the seconds, probably because he realized that he would easily be able to outrun his human prey.

            “ **Eight. Seven. Six.** ”

            “You bastard.” Bradley tugged at the demons holding him in place, but their grips were vice-tight. “What are you going to do to him?!”

            Ose turned his head sluggishly and gave Bradley what could have been intended as a reassuring grin. At the same time, he let a long silver blade drop from the hidden area of his cloak into his slightly-extended (and thus revealed) right hand. He didn’t even bother trying to hide it, as if wanting Bradley to know exactly what he was armed with. “ **Well, it would be nice to have just killed him here, but it does appear I’ve done some foreshadowing of my coming. It would be sloppy to ignore that.** ”

            “What?”

            “ **Do you enjoy nightmares, Mr. Carlisle?** ” The demon shook his head and looked off into the distance. “ **I suppose you wouldn’t. You’re a victim, not a creator.** ”

            Bradley didn’t understand what he meant, but that wasn’t entirely surprising to him, since he was conversing with a demon. Ose glanced at his bare left wrist and made a “tsk” of displeasure.

            “ **Would you look at the time?** ” He griped. “ **It seems I have a doctor to catch. You’ll join me later, won’t you, Carlisle?** ”

            “Go to Hell,” the teacher spat in contempt.

            “ **Been there, done that.** ”

* * *

 

            Darcy found himself running down a residential street. It was dark and snowy, and as he ran, falling snow kept landing on his face. He was running past houses with beautiful lights that cast a warm glow onto him, but he kept running, because he couldn’t slow down. Ose was chasing him. He needed to get away. It felt like he was running in slow motion, and though he couldn’t see or hear him, he knew that the demon was gaining on him.

            The former doctor dashed into a park, beginning to trudge through deep, un-shoveled snow whilst still trying to keep his speed. He could suddenly hear Ose’s laughter not just behind him, but all around him, and it made him again feel like he was surrounded… Which, in retrospect, he probably was. Whatever the case, he kept running. He knew it wasn’t so, but trees seemed to bend unnaturally as he passed them. Panic began to flood his system. Everything was wrong, and it terrified him.

            “Ansel!!”

            The second he screamed that name, he stopped in his tracks. This was all so familiar. He was having a serious case of déjà vu. Where had he seen this before? He looked left, then right, and then turned around, expecting to see Ansel, but saw nothing. Finally, it hit him; he had a nightmare just like this that morning.

            That was when the hand clamped down on his shoulder with enough force to cause him a surge of pain. He heard something snap, and that was when he felt something stab through his back, and out through the front of his chest. His vision beginning to blur, the doctor slowly tried to look down; sticking out of his chest was the tip of a bloody silver blade. His knees buckled a bit, and he fell back against something.

            Trembling and only half conscious, Darcy glanced over his shoulder at his killer. He saw Ose there, looking down at him, but in the midst of his pain, he didn’t even bother to acknowledge the demon. “ _Ansel_ ,” Despite everything, the doctor said the name with more love than hurt.

            “ **You always were a pain in my ass.** ”

            With those cruel final words, Ose shoved Darcy off of the blade and watched as the doctor crumpled first to his knees, and then down onto his stomach. Snowflakes fell into the doctor’s messy hair as he laid there in the snow, motionless.

            In his head, the demon could no longer feel Ansel struggling. Surely, the young man had recognized the allusion to one of the worst nightmares he’d ever had. The lack of a human presence left him rather empty. He felt nothing for his victory. He’d done the job, and that was that. Now he had to return to Hell. He looked down at his cloak and slid the blood-covered blade up into its sleeve, removing it from existence. When he looked up, he was actually started enough to jolt slightly when he saw Darcy standing on his feet in front of him. His hair covered his eyes, but he was facing him. He wore an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. There was still blood leaking from the wound on his chest, staining his shirt, but he seemed… unfazed.

            Ose blinked once or twice, trying to determine whether he was seeing things correctly or not, which he inwardly felt was somewhat ironic, considering hallucinations were his niche. “ **You’re not dead, then?** ” He asked in a flat, confused voice.

            “ **Ose,** ” Darcy said his name in a voice that sounded like his own, but at the same time, didn’t. That alone was what made Ose open his mouth in realization.

            “ ** _Oh._ Dantalion, it’s you. I should have known.** ”

            Suddenly, Dantalion’s hand was around Ose’s neck, and next thing the demon knew, he had been thrown into a tree. Dantalion walked over and stood in front of him as he got his bearings and looked up, crouching in the snow. The other demon glared down at him in Darcy’s body with glowing blue eyes. During the brief seconds where Ose was flying into the base of the tree, he had conjured his own black cloak around himself.

            “ **Well, this wasn’t in the plan,** ” Ose remarked.

            Dantalion grabbed Ose by his leopard print fur collar and hoisted him to his feet, getting right up in his face with a snarl.

            “ ** _Oo_ kay,**” Ose laughed nervously, “ **I can tell you’re not pleased.** ”

            “ **You wanted a fight.** ”

            “ **Well, I never said a _fight_ —**”

            “ **You always were a coward, Ose.** ”

            “ **A coward?!** ” Ose shoved Dantalion back. “ **I’ll show _you_ a coward!** ” He raised his hand, but didn’t seem to know what to do. Fighting Dantalion hadn’t been in the plan; the demon was supposed to have died with Darcy and gone to Hell. “ **W—well, I’ve got my thirty legions with me. They’ll be here any minute. Maybe you can face me, but you can’t face all of them, too!** ”

            Dantalion did not seem impressed. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “ **Don’t forget which of us has more demons. You have but thirty legions. I have thirty- _six._** ”

            “ **Right…** ” Ose lowered his hand.

            “ **Have you forgotten that I am your superior, President Ose?** ”

            “ **Lucifer sent me to get you.** ” Ose replied. “ ** _Your_ superior. Why are you still here? Your legions are going to be given to me if you stay up here very much longer.** ” He smirked. “ **Though, maybe that’s a good thing for me.** ”

            “ **What was the deal for your summoning?** ”

            “ **I had to bring this worthless human back to life.** ” Ose told him. “ **I must admit, I do like his hair, but my side of the deal is done.** ”

            Dantalion nodded, then revealed, “ **Mine isn’t.** ”

            Ose raised a brow.

            “ **My deal was to protect Ansel Hunnisett.** ”

            The Great President snarked, “ **Well, that’s a strange deal to agree to for a demon. Besides, you failed when he died, didn’t you?** ”

            “ **He made an exchange for this man, Darcy Adair. My deal was changed.** ”

            That confused Ose. “ **Wait, what? Your deal can’t change.** ”

            Dantalion shook his head. “ **Poor choice of words. It wasn’t changed. It merely extended. In order to protect Ansel Hunnisett, Darcy Adair must be kept alive.** ”

            “ **So you brought him back and hitched a ride.** ” Ose was now the one who seemed unimpressed. “ **I always knew you were sentimental, Dantalion, but _this?_** ”

            Dantalion took a step forward. “ **And as for your question,** ” he began, “ **my deal may have failed in part, but it was reopened the moment you brought Ansel Hunnisett a new body to inhabit.** ”

            Ose narrowed his eyes. For a long moment, both demons were quiet, just glaring at one another. During their unblinking staring contest, Ose’s demon army arrived, dragging Bradley along at the front of the pack. The computer teacher gasped when he saw Darcy in a cloak as well, fearing for the worst, but tried not to react too violently, lest the demons holding him rip him apart or something. What confused him was that it seemed that both Night Demons were out, but they were about to enter what looked like some kind of showdown. He ran through that statement in his head once more, finally realizing that no one would ever believe any of this had ever occurred. Almost all of the population of the country, if not most of the world, did not believe in demons, or ghosts, or anything along those lines. For the first time, he wished that he was one of those people; perhaps then he never would have dabbled in black magic.

            “ **Well,** ” Ose finally remarked as he threw off his cloak, allowing it to land in the snow behind him and revealing that he wore a tight black jumpsuit of some sort (it kind of looked like a scuba diving suit?) under it, “ **are we going to fight, or are we going to keep acting like civilized mortal scum?** ”

            Dantalion lowered his head with a small scoff that slowly grew into low laughter. Ose squirmed a bit, appearing uncomfortable.

            “ ** _Well?!_** ” He hissed impatiently.

            Dantalion finally raised his head. From his cloak, he pulled out Darcy’s dark blue scarf. Ose’s eyes locked on it, and he stared at it as it was extended toward him. “ **Ansel?** ” The superior demon beckoned, using Darcy’s gentle voice to his advantage despite it still being somewhat distorted. “ **Poppet, come out and talk to me.** ”

            Ose looked up at Dantalion, growling in frustration. “ **What a cheap move. Who’s the coward now?** ” He complained.

            “ **Oh, my dear boy,** ” Dantalion replied, mocking what Ose had said to him earlier as he clenched his fist tighter around the scarf and snarled, “ ** _this is merely the distraction._** ”

            Bradley watched as two other demons, these one surrounded by an ethereal blue aura, came virtually out of nowhere from the midst of the trees behind Ose. The one to the Night Demon’s right punched him in the face, and the other grabbed him by the jaw when the stumbled toward it, whipping him down to the ground. Snarling now in rising fury, the Great President of Hell clambered back to his feet.

            “ **We’re going to play this way, are we?** ” He asked, mildly annoyed. “ **Fine then. Two can play that game!** ”

            Other demons from Ose’s army rushed forward, charging toward Dantalion. When he extended his left hand, a strong mistral threw them back. In a show of his own power, Ose, by merely raising his right hand, caused the demons on either side of him to screech and evaporate.

            “ **We could fight for the rest of eternity, Dantalion.** ” Ose confessed. “ **The fact of the matter is that you might be my superior, but we are equals in combat.** ”

            “ **Then what do you propose? We seem to be at an impasse. You will not give up, and I will not fail my deal.** ” Dantalion pointed out. “ **It seems to me we must fight to determine the victor.** ”

            “ **Well, then fight we shall.** ”

            Ose lunged forward and tackled Dantalion. Bradley then watched the two of them wrestle one another, as if they were deciding to fight like mortals. Perhaps, he thought, that made it fairer for them, but he couldn’t be too sure what their reasoning was. Maybe their powers were limited as long as they were in mortal bodies… but then again, Ansel’s body wasn’t mortal, since Ose had made it himself. It didn’t make sense to him, but he didn’t dare say anything.

            Dantalion grabbed Ose by the throat, flipping him over and sitting over top of him. “ **You want me back in Hell?** ” He asked as he tightened his grip around the other demon’s throat. “ ** _Then you’re coming back with me._** ”

            Ose laughed. “ **Giving up already?** ”

            “ **No,** ” Dantalion replied, “ **just completing my end of the deal.** ”

            Fire erupted all around the two of them, and Ose began to scream. Bradley couldn’t see anything due to the intense heat, so he closed his eyes. That was when the flames exploded around him, as well. The demons surrounding him began to screech in pain; the sounds of a thousand dead men. It was so hot. Bradley thought he may go deaf and/or combust.

            As suddenly as the fire appeared, it vanished. Bradley reluctantly opened his eyes. The snow around him had melted, leaving him standing in grass that had been burnt dry. Darcy and—surprisingly—Ansel were lying on the ground a few feet away. They were dressed as they had been prior to the cloaks, both of which were gone. In fact, despite the melted snow, there were no signs that there had been anyone or anything but them in the park.

            The computer teacher looked around. If it weren’t for what he’d just witnessed, he would have found it unremarkable and normal; just your run-of-the-mill public park in December. Finally, he put his full focus on the two men on the ground, approaching them slowly.

            Darcy was lying on his back beside Ansel. In his right hand, he was holding his scarf. It was dark, but lights from nearby park lampposts revealed to Bradley the bloodstain on his shirt. He looked to be out cold, if not dead. Ansel was beside him, looking the same way. They were both somewhat battered from their scuffle.

            Bradley knelt down between them, at their feet, and took a shaky breath. It seemed he was alone. His fiancée was dead, and so were the men he’d reunited. He turned his eyes to Darcy. The poor fool had relied on him, and he had let him down. He never should have let the doctor talk him into using black magic again. Then, he turned his eyes to Ansel. It was confusing to him to see the young man’s body still present. He reached out his right hand to make sure it wasn’t an illusion—his hand grazed against the man’s grey pants; definitely real. If Ose was vanquished, then his body should have gone with him. Something wasn’t adding up, something that Bradley was too depressed to ponder.

            At the very least, the two of them seemed at peace. Ansel was even smiling, just a little bit.

            “Bradley?”

            He almost ignored the sound of someone calling his name in the distance until he heard it again, a little bit louder. The voice was far off, but loud enough in the night for him to recognize it.

            It was Sofia.

            Confused, Bradley stood and turned around. Sofia had been dead. Ose had killed her! Just when he was beginning to wonder if he’d finally lost his marbles, he heard one of the men behind him gasp loudly for air. He turned again; Ansel was sitting up now, greedily taking gulps of oxygen. The taller man looked up at Bradley, looking as surprised as the teacher felt.

            “What happened?” The former insomniac asked in a pant.

            “How are you alive?” Bradley questioned back.

            “I dunno, I…” Ansel, stunned, lowered his eyes somewhat. “I just am…!” He then noticed Darcy lying near him, and he got onto his knees beside the unconscious man. “Darc!”

            “What do you remember?!” The computer teacher was conflicted, wanting to stay to help, but also wanting to rush to check on his fiancée.

            Ansel looked at him again. “I stabbed him! Call an ambulance!” He turned back to Darcy, beginning to pet his head with shaky hands as Bradley hesitantly pulled out his cellphone. “Come on, Peanut, stay with me…! You can’t die like this, not now! _Darcy!_ ”


	19. Chapter 19

            When Darcy came to, it was to the sound of a patient monitor beeping. His eyes drifted slowly open, and he saw the white ceiling of the hospital he used to work at above his head. A sunbeam from the window made it look golden, however. For a long moment, he just sat there, blinking every so often as he stared straight up. He was confused.

            The last thing he remembered was pain in his shoulder and back/chest area. He had looked up and seen Ose. He still remembered the words that had been said to him.

            “ **You always were a pain in my ass.** ”

            He had died again, he was sure of it. Yet, once more, he seemed to be very much alive. His shoulder still hurt like hell, but his chest and back felt fine. It wasn’t until then that he recognized the feeling of a full-chest shoulder cast wrapped around his body. Well, that might explain the pain. Trying to sit up, he unconsciously produced a low grunt from the back of his throat, and that prompted someone sitting in a chair to his right to look up.

            “Darcy?” Just by the sound of his voice, Darcy knew it was Bradley, but he glanced over anyway. The computer teacher gave him a small, relieved smile, but he didn’t return it. If they were alive, it meant that Ose was gone, and if Ose was gone, that meant Ansel was gone, too.

            “How did we get here?” The doctor asked. As he spoke, he realized how much his face hurt. It felt like he’d been in a massive fist fight, though he had no recollection of one.

            “I called an ambulance for you. There was a lot of blood.” The teacher looked down somewhat. “No wound, though.”

            Of course.

            “Where’s Ansel?” As he hesitantly toed this topic, Darcy looked down at his own lap. He wasn’t expecting an answer that would do anything but make him cry in grief, so instead he changed the question: “Ose?”

            “Ose is in Hell.” Bradley replied. “I think.”

            “You _think?_ We need a little bit better than assumptions about this, Bradley.”

            “Well, it’s just that I didn’t exorcise him.”

            Darcy glared at him, but didn’t say anything.

            “I mean, I couldn’t. I didn’t have any rituals, and hell if I know how to exorcise supreme Night Demons from memory alone. Plus, you would have died if I did that.”

            “But then why is Ose ‘in Hell’? You didn’t exorcise him. Shouldn’t he still be here?”

            “Funny story,” Bradley scratched his beard, “involving something I didn’t know: demons can exorcise each other without any chants.”

            Darcy raised a brow, prompting Bradley to attempt an explanation.

            “I wasn’t there for a lot of it, but when I was dragged to you two, you were wearing a cloak, too. Dantalion took over your body after…” He looked at Darcy’s chest. “… y’know, _that_ happened. Anyway, he and Ose started to fight. Something about a conflict of interests, I guess? Like I said, I wasn’t there for a lot of it.”

            Already, Bradley’s story was a lot for him to take in, but still he asked, “Then what happened?”

            “Dantalion pinned Ose down, and then there was a lot of fire. He said something about keeping his side of some sort of deal. Ose was screaming. Man, it was so loud. All of his demons were making the most horrible sounds. Then, next thing I knew, it was over. It was just you, Ansel, and myself in that park.”

            “Whoa, hold on,” Darcy held up his free hand, “let’s backtrack a little bit. Ansel was there?”

            His answer came in the form of the room’s door, off to the left, opening. Ansel stepped in, looking like he, too, had been in a huge fight judging by the bruises on his face. He held a can of soda in his left hand, a cup of coffee in his right, and had a pastry sticking out of his mouth—it looked like some sort of fritter. He seemed to try saying something to Bradley through the pastry (unintelligibly, of course), but froze the second he noticed that Darcy was awake and staring at him. He was so stunned that he ended up dropping the can of soda, and when it hit the floor, he looked down in apparent horror. “ _Oh no!!_ ” He tried to shriek, but it was heavily muffled by the fritter in his mouth.

            Half from amusement and half from a whole mix of positive emotions, Darcy beamed at his friend. “Ansel…!” He couldn’t figure out how the young man was still around, much less _alive_ , but he didn’t care. They were together again, and that was all that mattered.

            The former insomniac put the cup of coffee down on the table beside Darcy, then bent down and picked up the can of soda—it was dented now, and he frowned at it. After putting it down on the table as well, making sure it could stand, he finally took the fritter out of his mouth, placing it on the top rim of the can. Then, he wiped his hands down on his pants and finally hugged Darcy. “Oh, man, I thought you were dead!” He told him.

            The embrace hurt his left shoulder, but he ignored his pain and wrapped his right arm around Ansel. He laughed a bit, then responded, “I could say the same about you!”

            Bradley smiled gently and stood up. “I’ll leave you two to your own devices.”

            As the computer teacher headed for the door, Darcy felt a pang of sympathy and what could have been guilt. “Bradley?” He called after him. The teacher turned to look at him from the doorway, so he continued, “I’m sorry about your—”

            Before Darcy could even finish, Bradley’s fiancée stepped into sight from the hallway and looked at her to-be-spouse. “Are we going?” She asked him.

            “Don’t be,” Bradley said to the doctor, “she’s alive, too. Take care, guys.”

            As Bradley left with his fiancée, closing the door behind himself, Darcy shot Ansel a confused look. The younger man merely shrugged.

            “I guess everything turned out okay in the end this time.” The former insomniac remarked. He walked around the bed, picked up the chair Bradley had been sitting on, and carried it over to the other side of the bed. There were more chairs in the room, but as was his way, he only seemed to want to move the one that had already been displaced.

            “Hey, do you remember anything?” Darcy inquired. “About last night, I mean.”

            Ansel finished sitting down and lowered his eyes to the edge of the bed. “I remember a little bit too much.” He admit.

            “Was I really possessed?”

            Ansel pointed his finger at him off-handedly and awkwardly confided, “ _That_ , I don’t remember. The last thing I remember is literally stabbing you in the back.”

            Darcy looked away and sighed quietly. He supposed he would just have to take Bradley’s word for what happened and let it remain a mystery beyond that. There was a short silence in the room that was interrupted by a brief sniffle from Ansel.

            “Hey, uh… Darc?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Those things that demon said… about Jay and I conspiring against you? It, uh… It wasn’t—”

            “You know what?” The doctor revealed, “I don’t actually care either way.”

            Ansel blinked. “You… You don’t?”

            Darcy shook his head. “Poppet, I love you like family; unconditionally. God knows why,” he quipped, “because, really, we’ve only known each other for four and a half months tops, haven’t we?”

            Ansel chuckled softly. “When you put it that way, it sounds like we’re reckless.” Then he randomly joked in a low whine, “ _Oh no, Darcy, you never told me you were a chick!_ ”

            “What?” Darcy, completely confused, laughed.

            “Just for the record,” Ansel picked up the fritter and took a bite, and as he chewed he concluded, “if I was a chick, I would _totally_ let you bang me.”

            “ _An_ sel!”

            The two of them shared a hearty laugh, which was one of the things Darcy had desperately missed when his friend was gone. In that moment, he was incredibly thankful that he’d met Bradley Carlisle, even despite yesterday being among the worst days of his life. He had his best friend back, and all it had cost was one day of torment and another one of his seemingly unlimited lives—however, he didn’t intend to die anymore. He didn’t want to test fate, since the saying “third time’s the charm” kept coming back to him. Surely his next death would be his last, especially if Dantalion had followed Ose to Hell.

            Pushing all of that aside, he focused instead on the moment, continuing to laugh with Ansel. They had a lot of lost time to make up for.

* * *

 

            He was standing in his bedroom, trying to look for something Christmas-y to change into at Ansel’s request, but had found himself distracted by the jar of ashes on the shelf. They were Ansel’s ashes, but Ansel was alive and kicking downstairs, so he found himself somewhat perplexed; should he keep the ashes or scatter them somewhere? He figured it was probably easier to just keep the ashes, unless Ansel grew uncomfortable at the sight of what his prior body had been reduced to. So, instead, he stood there, holding himself with both arms, the left of which hadn’t been too badly broken, and had thus been freed from its cast four days prior.

            It was the 24th. While the days leading up to that date were some of the happiest days of his entire life, tonight he was very nervous. With everything that had happened between him and Ansel, he’d come to learn at least this much: his time with the young man was not unlimited. For some reason, probably due to the event exactly two years prior, tonight was what Darcy couldn’t help but consider the limit of their time. He worried that something bad would happen. He wouldn’t be able to handle it again if Ansel didn’t come out of the night well.

            “Darc?” Ansel called up for him from the foot of the stairs. “You comin’ down or what?”

            “I’ll be right down,” Darcy hollered back. He waited for a minute or two, trying to work up the strength to go downstairs, before he finally thought, “Fuck it,” and forced himself to leave the bedroom. As he was walking down the stairs, he realized that Ansel had started playing some soft Christmas music from the computer against the far wall of the living room—specifically The Carpenters’ version of _Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas_. When he stepped down the last step and turned to his right, he saw Ansel standing beside the back of the couch. He had changed into one of the ugliest red Christmas sweaters Darcy had ever seen, and he looked like he was fighting back a fit of laughter.

            “Like it?” He sniggered. “Molly got it for me as a joke.”

            Darcy gently shook his head. “You two were made for each other.”

            As the two of them sat down on the couch, Ansel laughed. “I’m just surprised that she and I are still together.”

            “It’s only been two weeks.” Darcy pointed out.

            “I’ve never had a relationship last longer than _half_ a week.”

            “Well, who’s the loser now?” The doctor teased.

            “Oh, right, because _you’re_ a regular Mr. Steal Your Girl.” Ansel gibed back light-heartedly.

            They laughed, and then they were quiet. There was a decorated tree in the corner of the room that glowed at them as they idly watched a yule log burning on the television. The longer they were silent, the tenser Darcy grew. Eventually, he glanced over at Ansel, who was lost in thought.

            Finally—abruptly—the younger man spoke, albeit somewhat vacantly. “I’ve changed my mind.”

            “About what?”

            “I think I want to start a family someday. Settle down with someone.”

            “With Molly?” Darcy offered off-handedly with a small smile.

            “I don’t know,” Ansel admit after a beat, “maybe.” Then he stretched his arms and upper body, groaning as he did, before falling back into a less deliberate sitting position. He seemed tired, and that only made Darcy that much more anxious. “I mean,” he continued, “I _think_ she might be my soulmate, but like you said, it’s only been two weeks, so who knows.”

            “Time will tell,” Darcy mumbled.

            Ansel smirked and briefly raised his eyebrows at him. “Que será, será.”

            “I can only imagine how long you’ve been waiting for an appropriate time to say that.”

            “A helluva long time.”

            “Thought so.”

            Ansel yawned. Noticing how Darcy stared at him in mute apprehension, he managed a small chuckle and waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna die on you again. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

            Darcy nodded his head slowly. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Ansel’s head was laying gently against his left shoulder. The doctor felt an anxious pit in the bottom of his stomach, but he was soothed every time he felt Ansel’s head bob ever so slightly, being moved by his slow, rhythmic breathing. So, Darcy didn’t move for several minutes, just glancing between Ansel and the fireplace on the TV screen every so often. When he finally felt the younger man was comfortably asleep—or at least close enough for him to move without waking him—he carefully pulled up the arm he was laying against and draped it over his shoulders, pulling the former insomniac slightly closer to himself. Then, gently, he rest his head against his friend’s. A tear ran down his cheek, but he wasn’t sure what emotion was causing it. He figured it was happiness. He felt truly peaceful in that moment. He never wanted to get up.

            “Merry Christmas, Poppet…” Darcy whispered, and then he, too, closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into a deep, contented sleep beside his best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please leave a Kudo, and be sure the check out the sequel, _[Don't Leave Me Here All Alone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9273914)_!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Don't Leave Me Here All Alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9273914) by [Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry)




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